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The girls of Grand Meadow: Minnesota's best-kept sports dynasty secret

By JIM PAULSEN, Star Tribune, 08/07/18, 1:00PM CDT

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From 1929 to 1939, the Meadowlarks played 94 games of six-on-six basketball and never lost. Usually, it wasn't close. Opponents 'were afraid to play us,' said Beulah Ankeny, 99.


Beulah Ankeny, 99, and Mae Gross, 97, were part of the record-setting Grand Meadow girls' basketball teams of 1929-39, which won 94 consecutive games. Photo: JERRY HOLT • jerry.holt@startribune.com

There’s no sign on Mower County Road 8 into Grand Meadow to commemorate the greatness that existed more than 80 years ago in this small southern Minnesota town. Nothing that mentions the most amazing streak in Minnesota high school sports history. Few residents remain who can recall those days, from 1929 through 1939, and not many more have heard of it. But, for that 11-year period, the center of the girls’ high school basketball world was a long-since gone opera house on Grand Meadow’s Grand Avenue that doubled as a basketball gymnasium. It was there that the girls’ basketball team entertained frequent sellout crowds by winning every game it played.

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