HURON — When the record books look back at the high school career of Hamtyn Heinz, they will see one of the most accomplished female athletes in the history of Huron High School, but what doesn’t show up in the numbers is the personal tragedy that Hamtyn experienced her final year as she earned many of those accolades.

The Heinz family lost Hamtyn’s mother, Peggy Heinz, the principal at Buchanan K-1 Center in the Huron School District, to cancer on Dec. 19, two days before Hamtyn and the Tigers’ girls’ basketball team were to play against Sioux Falls Washington.

Tigers girls’ basketball coach Kody Kopfmann recalls the combination of emotions around the team, specifically Hamtyn and her sister Hylton, at the passing of their mother.

“When I found out Peggy had passed, I was determined that we were not playing Washington on that Thursday night. However, the Heinz family and Hamtyn and Hylton decided that they wanted to play Washington,” Kopfmann recalled.

“Peggy passed on a Tuesday night. On Wednesday, I did not see the Heinz girls, but I did bring the rest of the team in and we talked about what had happened and how we were going to handle this situation as a team, we did a little bit of basketball activity and then went home.”

“Thursday,” Kopfmann continued, “we showed up on game day not knowing what to expect from Hamtyn and Hylton, as we had not seen them yet. I think they showed up at around 5 o’clock for the game. It was very hard seeing them and emotions were running really high for everybody,” Kopfmann said.

“In the locker room before the game, we didn’t even talk about basketball. We talked about how strong the Heinz girls were and how courageous our whole team was to even be taking the court that night after everything that we had already been through.

“I told the girls no matter the outcome of the basketball game we had already won, we were winners for uniting and being there for one another as a family.”

Hamtyn remembers the difficulty of putting on the uniform that evening.

“It was extremely hard to continue to want to keep playing sports because of everything going on,” Heinz recalled. “But a couple days after her passing, I suited up for our Thursday game at home against Washington because I knew it was what she wanted us to do.”

When Hamtyn scored her 1,000th point in basketball on Feb. 3 against Sturgis, she joined an extremely exclusive club of Huron athletes - in fact, it only includes her. Hamtyn finished her volleyball career with more than 2,000 assists and more than 1,000 digs, becoming just the second Tiger volleyball player to ever surpass 1,000 in two different statistical categories over a career. The other was Tenley Buddenhagen. Tenley, however, did not reach 1,000 career points in basketball, putting Hamtyn in elite territory among Huron female athletes.

Hamtyn is one of seven Tigers female hoopers who have ever reached 1,000 points, and she and her older sister Havyn are the only siblings on that list.

Oh, and she’s also a standout in track who has placed in the state meet in javelin during her high school career.

Reaching those accolades her senior year became a tougher goal for Hamtyn as her mother’s health declined and she then passed.

“I am super grateful that she was able to be there to witness my accomplishments during volleyball and I know she had the best seat for my basketball ones,” Heinz expressed. “Hitting the accomplishments and honors throughout basketball was tough because I didn’t have my mom there with me to celebrate, though she had the best seat to watch it happen. These awards and accomplishments mean more to me since I was going through a hard time while continuing to make these accomplishments happen.”

Heinz topped off her senior year with a commitment to play basketball at Dakota State University in Madison, recently announced publicly.

To what does she attribute all of her athletic success?

“Growing up, I went to watch my brothers and my older sister playing. Then, my dad got a team together with me and my friends in fourth grade,” Heinz remembered. “I’ve just always been around sports.”

Hamtyn did admit that while she didn’t compare herself to her brothers’ athletic accomplishments, she did keep an eye on the work of her older sister, Havyn.

“The one I would compare myself to is my older sister - for one because we’re both girls,” she said with a smile. “We both had records throughout our high school career and milestones in our playing.”

Her advice to Hylton, as her younger sister looks to become the last remaining child still full-time at home, had plenty of humor involved.

“I think she’ll like being the only one at home. She’ll finally get to be in charge,” Hamtyn laughed. “I would go to school and practice all week and then head to the gym on Sunday to put in extra time, and she started coming with me. I’d encourage her to keep up with that.”

Despite all of her accomplishments, Hamtyn has maintained perspective on her athletic accomplishments, shown by her response when the volleyball team this season broke a 14-year streak of the Tigers making the Class AA state volleyball tournament when they lost in the SoDak 16 match to Brandon Valley.

“I was bummed because it was my last year and you always want to make state, but I was also happy because I was proud of my team because they were really young. I was the only returning starter, so it took a bit to get the varsity tempo down,” Heinz recalled. “I was proud that we were able to host a SoDak 16 game because no one expected us to do that.”

Her role on teams changed this season as well, as a strong senior class graduated last year, leaving Hamtyn as one of the few with playing experience in both volleyball and basketball. Kopfmann observed the shift in her focus with the team.

“Last year, Hamtyn didn’t have to be the primary scorer, although she was a very good scorer for us. She had girls around her who had played very meaningful varsity minutes in the past so she didn’t have to be as much of a leader when it came to teaching girls how to play the game and how to handle the adversity of the game,” Kopfmann noted.

“This year, Hamtyn was not only required to score for us, but she was also our only experience returning, so she had to teach the girls on the fly in game situations to get us through each game. She had to play and lead this year and she did a great job of doing so.”

Hamtyn says that she sets her eyes high in the athletes that she emulates and admires, naming Steph Curry, Caitlyn Clark, and former SDSU player Macy Miller.

Life isn’t just about sports for Heinz. She states that spending time at her family’s cabin at Lake Byron in the summer is one of her favorite recreation activities.

“Outside of the lake and sports, though, I really don’t have hobbies,” Hamtyn laughed. “That’s one thing I’ll get to experience as I head to college is finding things like that. I’ve been used to a schedule of workouts, sports, go to bed, wake up, and repeat.”

When all is said and done, through everything that happened, Hamtyn said that the extra effort was well worth it.

“Seeing all the countless hours in the gyms and putting in the extra work and hard work really pays off in the end,” she observed. “Earning all of these awards has really reflected all of the extra hours that have been put in.”