The Free Press
MANKATO — Mankato East High School, particularly Cougars named Madson, dominated the top individual honors in the inaugural Greater Mankato Area Athletic Awards presented Tuesday.
The Cougars won the awards for coaching and for top male athlete and top female athlete for the 2024-25 school year.
The 2024-25 Team of the Year award went to the Mankato co-ed adapted floor hockey team.
The First Annual Greater Mankato Area Athletic Awards, or GMAs, were determined by Free Press sports staff, working with area schools and coaches, and were presented by physicians and other staff from the Orthopaedic & Fracture Clinic, which was a primary sponsor of the event. The architecture and engineering firm ISG was also a sponsor.
Joe Madson, the longtime coach of the two-time state champion East softball team and the East boys basketball teams, received the Coach of the Year honor and his son Brogan Madson, a star in both football and basketball for the Cougars, was named Boys Athlete of the Year.
The Girls Athlete of the Year award was shared by Rylie Hansen, a gymnast and track and field state champion, and Kylinn Stangl, a basketball player and two-time state champion in softball. Both are East High seniors.
For Team of the Year, it was the Mankato adaptive floor hockey squad, which is made up of athletes from both East and West High. After defeating top-ranked Maple Grove in the state tournament quarterfinals, the Knights finished fourth in the state in just their fourth season in existence.
GMA awards were also presented for the top athlete in each individual prep sport: football, volleyball, basketball, soccer, cross country, tennis, swimming and diving, basketball, hockey, wrestling, gymnastics, softball, baseball, track and field and golf. Sports offered for both boys and girls had winners for each gender.
The winners were announced Tuesday night in an award show attended by about 200 people and hosted by Free Press Publisher Steve Jameson at the Centennial Student Union Ballroom at Minnesota State University. A magazine detailing both the winners and the finalists in the various categories was scheduled to be inserted in Wednesday’s Free Press.