Ayden McDonald Continuing Family Tradition, Leading Hibbing to Class AAA State Tournament

McDonald and the Bluejackets will take on DeLaSalle in the class AAA state quarterfinals on Wednesday at St. Cloud Tech. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m.

HIBBING, Minn. – It’s been a season to remember so far for Hibbing’s Ayden McDonald. On the court, he recorded 900 career assists and also became the program’s all-time leading scorer.

“A little bit different from the mold of our family; scoring isn’t really his MO. He’s able to do it but he has tendency to make the right play, whether that’s getting us a basket or making the right pass,” Hibbing head coach Joel McDonald said, who’s also Ayden’s dad.

“It’s a lot of great teammates growing up with and great teammates playing with the last few years here,” Ayden said.

Over the summer, Ayden put out a social media post saying that his goal for the next two years of his high school career was to get his dad to his first state tournament as a coach. Fast forward eight months later, Ayden helps lead Hibbing past defending section 7AAA champions Princeton to their first state tournament since 1989.

“Him and Coach Brown and Coach Young have worked really hard these last 15, 20 years to build this program up,” Ayden said.

“This came at a time over the summer when I was about to go through a pretty significant surgery. It was incredibly meaningful and really emotional and after watching all of this play out the way it did, it’s kind of emotional all over again,” Joel added.

The section 7AAA title win adds to the legacy of the McDonald family, one that started with Ayden’s late grandfather Bob, the longtime Chisholm head coach who passed away back in October.

“He was all about the state tournaments, he was all about winning big games,” Joel said.

“Whenever we, me and my dad went to see him during the last few years, he would always ask about us and the guys on the team so I think he’d be happy,” Ayden added.

Now that they’re at state, Ayden is ready for a deep run with the Bluejackets.

“It would mean a lot with how close we are as a team and making a run, taking it one game at a time would be really fun,” Ayden said.

McDonald and the Bluejackets will take on DeLaSalle in the class AAA state quarterfinals on Wednesday at St. Cloud Tech. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m.