Southern Door's Drew Daoust chases history; Marinette's Sam Sommerfeldt hits career milestone
When it comes to scoring points on the boys high school basketball court in Wisconsin, Anthony Pieper remains the undisputed best.
The former Wausaukee guard scored 3,391 points during his time with the Rangers from 1989 to 1993, and nobody has come close to breaking the record since he graduated.
Pieper laughed during a conversation years ago about someone eventually taking the top spot from him.
“I don’t want anyone to do it,” said Pieper, who played at Marquette.
It was good-natured at the time, but as each prep career comes and goes, Pieper remains the king of the conversation.
But there is a kid at Southern Door who might at least make things interesting by the end of next season.
Junior guard Drew Daoust scored 42 points in a win over Sturgeon Bay on Monday and needs seven more to become the 52nd player in state history to score 2,000. He will get his first chance to top the mark Thursday when the Eagles visit Algoma.
Daoust has been a scoring machine since he stepped on the court at Southern Door and averaged 19.4 points as a freshman, but he keeps topping himself each season.
The 6-foot-2 Daoust ranks second in the state with 34.4 points per game, one season after he ranked third with 32.1. He also is averaging 5.2 rebounds, 3.9 assists and shooting 49% overall.
“You know, I really haven’t processed it yet,” Daoust said about 2,000 points. “We are so locked in on the season, and there are bigger things going on that it’s kind of in the back of my mind, to be honest. I will probably look back in the summer or something and realize, ‘Wow, that’s a crazy milestone to hit as a junior.’”
Daoust became the all-time leading scorer in Door County history during the second half of a win over Algoma in December, breaking former Eagles star Nathan Vogel’s mark of 1,566 points that had stood since 1999.
Why stop dreaming big now? Could Daoust be the one to push Pieper aside by the time he’s done?
Like everyone else before him, it’s going to be extremely difficult.
Southern Door has five games remaining and at least one in the tournament, along with at least 25 games next season.
He needs 1,398 points during that span, or an average of 45.1 points per game in 31 contests. If the Eagles can make a run through the tournament the next two seasons, it will give him a more realistic opportunity.
Southern Door has not advanced past WIAA Division 3 regional play in each of Daoust’s first two seasons.
During the four seasons Pieper played, Wausaukee advanced to either the sectional finals or the state tournament, giving Pieper additional games to add to his totals. With a high school team allowed to play no more than 27 games per season at the time, Pieper played in 103 of the maximum 108 games.
Chasing Mickey Crowe, Anthony Pieper
Pieper shattered the state’s previous all-time scoring mark, which had been set by former St. Nazianz JFK Prep legend Mickey Crowe when he scored 2,724 points before graduating in 1975.
Daoust might not catch Pieper, but if he stays reasonably healthy, he has an excellent chance to move past Crowe for second on the scoring list by the time he graduates. He is 731 points behind him.
Daoust actually had a more productive start to his high school career than Pieper, although prep players these days have the benefit of more regular-season games. He scored 505 points as a freshman and 835 as sophomore, while Pieper had 488 as a freshman and 808 as a sophomore.
But nobody has topped what Pieper did his final two seasons, which is what made it possible for him to vault to the top spot and break a record that had been held by Crowe for 18 years.
Pieper still has the top two individual single-season scoring campaigns in state history, putting up 1,032 points as a junior and 1,063 points as a senior as the primary scorer in Wausaukee’s run-and-gun offense.
Only former Sheboygan Lutheran star Jacob Ognacevic in 2019-20 (1,024) and Crowe in 1974-75 (1,001) have scored 1,000 points in a season.
Daoust is seeing everything you’d expect a player averaging 30 points to face from defenses each game.
Box-and-1. Double teams. Sometimes even triple.
He’s had success despite the extra attention, and his teammates have a way of punishing teams that only focus on him.
“There has been a lot of stuff thrown at me, and I’ve seen a lot of things,” Daoust said. “I kind of adapt to that. I know how to handle that. By the end of however many minutes, if I don’t have my points, I don’t have my points. As long as we win, I don’t care if I score 10 points or 35. If I have to score 35 to win, I’ll do what it takes to win.”
Yes, Daoust is helping the Eagles win. Nothing about those numbers he puts up is empty.
Southern Door is on the cusp of a second straight Packerland Conference championship. It is 15-4 overall and has gone a combined 52-19 in Daoust’s three seasons.
He’s not a one-man show no matter how much it looks like it at times, including a career-high 53 points against Sevastopol earlier this season.
The reigning Packerland player of the year gives plenty of credit for his success to those playing beside him.
“My teammates keep me open,” Daoust said. “I mean, we have guys knocking down shots. Guys can’t just collapse on me, so I can go out there and score 30 points a game and have seven assists or however many assists because they are knocking down their shots. Teams can’t just focus on me, because they have to respect those shooters.”
Drew Daoust is great all-around athlete
Daoust comes from a long line of basketball players in his family. His two older brothers, Kyle and Alex, both played at Southern Door.
Kyle, a 2019 graduate, scored 1,560 points. Alex, a 2021 graduate, scored 867 points and now is an assistant coach for Southern Door.
Their mother, Tonya DeBroux, was one of the first two Southern Door girls players, along with Nikki Malcore, to record 1,000 career points in the early 1990s. She played at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
“Our older two boys were very different players than each other, and from hours in the gym and playing with them in the driveway, I could tell he was able to mimic his game from both of them,” DeBroux said about Drew. “They never cut him a break when he was young playing driveway basketball, even though they were years older than him. I feel that is paying off for him now.”
Daoust isn’t just good at basketball. He’s good at everything.
He is the starting quarterback on the football team, throwing for 874 yards and seven touchdowns and rushing for 669 yards and 12 scores this past season. He has thrown for 2,324 yards and 24 TDs and rushed for 1,045 yards and 25 scores his first three years.
Daoust also has been an all-conference selection during his baseball career in the spring.
The hardwood is where his future is, even though he loves football and baseball.
He plays for the Wisconsin Crusaders out of Appleton during the AAU season and holds an offer from Newman University, an NCAA Division II school in Wichita, Kansas.
There still is time for other schools to come calling, but Daoust is excited to know he will get the opportunity to play at the next level.
Former star Ryan Claflin became the first basketball player at Southern Door to land with a DI program when he made a walk-on commitment to the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in 2019, passing up several DII offers.
He eventually transferred and is in his senior season at Palm Beach Atlantic University, a DII school in Florida.
“The scholarship (offer) I have is a great opportunity right now,” Daoust said. “But I am going to hold out and wait for some other opportunities, give me some options. Hopefully, they come about. But if they don’t, I would gladly go down to Newman.”
No matter where he ends up, it appears Daoust has bragging rights during holidays with family.
Daoust laughed when asked if there is any doubt which family member is the best basketball player.
“No,” Daoust said. “That’s not even up for debate anymore.”
Sam Sommerfeldt makes his mark at Marinette
There is a picture of Sam Sommerfeldt, front and center, in the arms of his father after a basketball game in 2008.
He’s only 2 at the time, but he’s watching Daren Sommerfeldt cut down the nets after the former Marinette coach led his team to a win over West De Pere that clinched a share of the Bay Conference championship for the Marines for the first time in 20 years.
“He’s never shied away from the moment,” Daren said.
No, he hasn’t.
Sam still is front and center all these years later.
The 6-foot senior guard at Marinette recently became just the sixth player in program history to score 1,000 career points and enters a home game against Wrightstown on Thursday with 1,025.
With at least six games remaining in his career, Sam can pass a rather notable name on the scoring list before he’s done.
He’s 41 points shy of tying the 1,066 points Dale Race had in the 1960s. The 1965 graduate was the school’s first 1,000-point scorer before having a standout career at UW-Oshkosh.
Race enjoyed a long coaching career at Minnesota-Duluth, and among other stops, served as an assistant coach for the gold medal U.S. squad at the 1989 U.S. Olympic Development Festival and was an assistant coach at UWGB under Tod Kowalczyk.
Sam, who has averaged double figures each of the last three seasons and ranks in the top five in the North Eastern Conference in assists this season, needs 128 points to tie 1974 graduate Bryan Boettcher for fourth place on the scoring list. Boettcher was a star player at UWGB, finishing his collegiate career with 1,442 points.
The latest accomplishment was so notable that Marinette had an entire page inserted into its game program to honor Sam’s milestone.
“Sam is the hardest working player I have had the opportunity to work with,” Marinette coach Connor Nelson said. “He spends hours in the gym perfecting his craft. He has been our leader on and off the court and excels in the classroom as much as he does on the basketball court.
“I feel very lucky to have him leading our program in the right direction. He is the perfect example of being able to do whatever you put your mind to.”
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Southern Door's Drew Daoust is chasing Wisconsin basketball history
