Hayden Seay and Bishop Ryan, and Wyatt Weekley and Our Redeemer’s will meet in the state tournament for a second straight year, this time matching up in the quarterfinal round on Thursday, March 19, at the MSU Dome at 2:45 p.m. The Knights won the first two meetings with the Lions this season. Mike Kraft/MDN

Some of the most well-known rivalries across sports are rooted in a severe disdain for one another.

Whether it’s Yankees-Red Sox in baseball, Ohio State-Michigan in football, North Carolina-Duke in basketball or North Dakota-Minnesota in hockey, there is no love lost between the rival programs. The players don’t like each other. The fanbases certainly don’t like each other. And sometimes even the coaching staffs don’t like each other.

But not every rivalry needs to be born out of hatred. The crosstown rivalry between Our Redeemer’s and Bishop Ryan is one such example. Separated by three miles down Broadway, the rivalry between the Lions and Knights has reached new heights in recent memory as both boys basketball programs have risen to the top of the Class B ranks. But as the competition between the two schools intensifies, the mutual respect they have for one another does as well.

“It’s a friendly rivalry,” Bishop Ryan coach Broderick Bosch said. “Two schools in the same town, you usually don’t like each other, but we both kind of come from the same background and have each other’s backs in a lot of things. There is a lot of respect from the kids and the coaches. It’s definitely a very friendly rivalry.”

Bosch has experienced the Bishop Ryan-Our Redeemer’s rivalry from all angles. He played for the Lions from 2010-2014, was an assistant coach under former Bishop Ryan and now current Our Redeemer’s coach Brock Teets for a couple years before taking over the Knights’ program for two years beginning in 2018. He’s been the head coach of the Lions since the 2020-21 season.

When Bosch was a player, the rivalry between the two schools was less of a rivalry and more of a hammer vs. nail situation. Bishop Ryan won every matchup with Our Redeemer’s up until Bosch’s junior season in 2012-13, when the Knights finally earned their first win in the series. Since then, the rivalry has grown and the two programs have traded wins across the years.

Since the 2014-15 season, the two teams have met 31 times. Bishop Ryan has won 16 meetings, while Our Redeemer’s has won the other 15. They have met 10 times during that period in the district tournament, with each winning five matchups and seven times in the regionals, with the Lions holding a slim 4-3 advantage. They have met four times in the region championship game, each lifting the trophy twice.

“It’s high energy,” Teets said. “There’s no doubt about it. The players go at each other. I’ve never been at a Bishop Ryan-Our Redeemer’s game where the energy level wasn’t high from both teams. Everybody gives it their all and it becomes a grind. It’s really difficult to score. You earn every basket you get. The energy in the gym is always there. There’s always a packed house.”

In the past, Bishop Ryan and Our Redeemer’s could never meet in the state tournament, as the only way to play in the final weekend was to win the region championship. With the move to the three-class system, that has become a possibility, and occurred for the first time last season, with Bishop Ryan outlasting Our Redeemer’s in overtime in the state semifinals. They will meet again this year in the quarterfinals.

“I don’t think it became a huge rivalry until we started seeing each other in the playoffs or the districts and regionals more and more throughout the years,” Bosch said.

Like Bosch, Teets has coached on both sidelines. He took over at Bishop Ryan in 2013 and coached for three years before stepping down to concentrate with a heavy workload at his company. Bosch was in his senior season when Teets became the head coach.

“I’ve got a great relationship with Brody,” Teets said. “I loved him as a player. I loved coaching with Brody. I helped him out here when he was with Our Redeemer’s. I’d come in once in a while to help him out when I was out of coaching for a while. I was very grateful for him for allowing me to still be around the game a bit and get in the gym and help him out. I have a lot of respect for him. He’s come so far. He’s one of the better coaches in the state. I’m so proud of him. I was excited for them to win last year.”

Teets returned to coaching in 2020 when he was hired to lead Our Redeemer’s. It was the same year Bosch became the coach at Bishop Ryan. While the games are fun, Teets admitted that he doesn’t get a lot of joy when having to coach against his former team. It’s not because of any bad blood, but rather the amount of respect and love he has for everyone at the school.

“We have a lot of guys that like their guys,” Teets said. “They’re good kids. I have a lot of respect for those kids. Everybody wants to talk about a crosstown rivalry and it’s a lot of fun for the fans, but I have a lot of respect for Bishop Ryan. I respect their program, their coaches, their players. It’s bittersweet playing Brody. If you happen to win, it’s not real feel-good because Brody’s always going to be a good friend of mine and I have a lot of respect for Brody.”

Bosch has the same amount of respect for Teets as Teets has for him.

“He’s my mentor,” Bosch said. “He’s taught me what basketball is all about. He’s one of the greatest. I have all the respect in the world for Brock Teets.”

The players are as friendly with one another as the coaches are. A couple nights a year, the two are foes for 32 minutes on the court (or a few minutes more with the number of recent overtime contests the two schools have played), but in the fall they are teammates on the gridiron, as they are co-op partners in football. Bishop Ryan’s Jack Passa, Peyton Seay, Hayden Seay, Jake Altringer and Justice Lundeen, and Our Redeemer’s Dalton Swensrud and Tate Hoffart are members of their respective varsity basketball teams that all played together this fall on the football team.

On the court, both programs have had the upper hand at times over the other. Our Redeemer’s won every meeting in 2015-16, 2019-20, 2020-21 and has won the first two meetings this season. Bishop Ryan swept the season series in 2017-18, 2022-23 and 2023-24. The Lions had a stretch of eight consecutive victories between 2022-2025. The Knights’ longest winning streak against the Lions is four games. They have won four of the last five meetings.

The games tend to be close. Fifteen of the last 31 matchups have been decided by fewer than 10 points, and five have required overtime.

“It’s a grind,” Teets said. “They do a lot of similar things that we do defensively. It becomes very difficult. They know us and we know them so well. The games have been really, really good. It just becomes a grind. It’s physical. It’s tough.”

The two teams were never more even than they were last season. They met five times – twice during the regular season and three times in the playoffs – and every game was decided by seven points or less. The district, region and state matchups all required overtime.

“Last year, all the games we played against them were so good that each one of them had their own special moments in them and huge plays from both sides,” Bosch said. “Each time we played them, it’s been huge games with multiple big plays that are easy to remember.”

From a historical perspective, the Lions have had the upper hand when it comes to hardware. In the modern era (post-Minot St. Leo’s), Bishop Ryan has won two state titles and appeared in four championship games. This is the Lions’ 14th time at the state tournament since the 1990s. They also have 11 region titles and nine district titles.

All of Our Redeemer’s success has come over the last 10 years. The Knights are making their fourth appearance at the state tournament. Their first trip in 2016 resulted in an appearance in the state title game, settling for second place against Four Winds-Minnewaukan. They have four district titles and two region titles.

The atmosphere in the practice gym has a different vibe to it on the heels of a Bishop Ryan-Our Redeemer’s contest. While not a lot is said out loud, there is a different level of focus from the players leading up to the game.

“My players don’t say much,” Teets said. “It’s not like they’re talking about it, but you can definitely sense it. Sometimes when your team is really quiet, they’re really focused and you do notice that a little bit before we play Ryan. There’s a little sense in the locker room that we really have to step up our game. We know we have to play our best basketball to beat Bishop Ryan. I don’t care what their record is or what our record is. If you want to beat Ryan you always have to be playing your best basketball.”

Neither coach is looking forward to being the one responsible for ending the other’s state championship aspirations when the Knights and Lions meet in the quarterfinal round on Thursday, March 19, at the MSU Dome. But they both know that when the final buzzer sounds, both fan bases will come together and root each other on the rest of the way.

“The crowds are very into it but at the same time you have that feeling that after the game, whoever wins, your fans start to switch over and almost root for the other team to be successful now,” Bosch said.