Courtesy photo Mid Peninsula’s Zach Englund poses with a sign after reaching the 1,000-point mark for his career during Wednesday’s Division 4 district semifinal loss to Hannahville at Rapid River.

ST. NICHOLAS — Despite the recent local frequency, it is a rarity to achieve over 1,000 points during a high school basketball career.

Mid Peninsula’s Zach Englund added a little extra spice to his accomplishment, crossing the 1,000-point barrier Wednesday night during a 72-55 district loss to Hannahville — making it the last game of his high school career.

“I knew I was close, and that I had to get it if we were going to lose,” he said. “I just really had a mentality to score.”

While Englund passed the milestone in the first half, he didn’t even realize that he had it until the second half when he subbed out. He finished the game with a career-high 32 points.

“I didn’t even know I had it until the second half,” he said. “My coach (Mark Branstrom) came up to me and said, ‘Congratulations! You got it.’ It felt pretty good.”

It wasn’t a matter of just cruising to the achievement, however. Englund has only been involved with the basketball program for three years, so he started with a disadvantage.

“It took me three years to do it,” he said. “It took a lot of hard work and a lot of shooting to get ready for scoring that much.”

Worrying about hitting 1,000 wasn’t something that was on his radar at the beginning of the season, and even as the season wound down, it wasn’t his top priority.

“I didn’t even find out until during the last 10 games that I actually had a chance to get it,” he said. “My mentality was, if I got it, I got it, but I wanted to put the team first.”

Reaching such a high mark isn’t something someone can do on their own, and Englund felt his team and coach deserve thanks for enabling him to do so.

“I just wanted to thank my coach and teammates for helping me get to that achievement,” he said.