Former Andover standout Brett Tester earns honors at St. Scholastica

Former Andover basketball standout Brett Tester became the first St. Scholastica player to earn first team Academic All-America honors in back-to-back years.

Tester is the only player from the Midwest to earn first team honors and the only 4.0 student-athlete on the first team. He is also the only repeat player on either the men's or women's All-America first team.

Tester, an accounting and finance major, led the Saints in scoring for the third consecutive season, averaging 13.8 points per game. He also had a team-high 157 rebounds this season.

Tester became just the third player to record more than 1,500 career points (1,504) in program history and just the second player to score 1,500 points and grab more than 600 rebounds (646).

Totino-Grace sophomore Lance Benick could have qualified at 182 pounds and gone for his second consecutive Class 2A state championship at that weight. But he had one thing in mind: revenge.

Benick's only loss this season was to Kasson-Mantorville 195-pound senior Broc Berge at the Christmas Tournament in December. Beating Berge was his biggest goal.

Mission accomplished. Benick made an escape stand up, beating Berge, the 2012 195-pound champion, 2-1 in triple overtime. "Beating him was all I wanted," Benick said.

How good was the Class 2A 500-yard freestyle final? Lakeville South junior Mitch Herrera bested the state record by more than three-tenths of a second, and finished fourth.

In one of the fastest races in state meet history, Mounds View senior Noah Lucas set a new all-time state record — for any sanctioned meet, regardless of class — of four minutes 26.47 seconds, shattering the old mark of 4:28.00 set in 1995 by former Olympian Tom Malchow.

"It was just crazy," Lucas said. "I've had some fast races, but that was definitely unique."

For Lucas, it was just part of a record-breaking night. The North Dakota-bound senior also broke the all-time state record in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:37.30.

"I definitely wasn't expecting these times," Lucas said. "I mean, I was hoping to break them, but to do it like this is pretty awesome."