Saranac Lake’s Mik Denkenberger, left, smiles with his boys basketball head coach Daryl Crist during Wednesday’s spring sports meeting at the Saranac Lake High School gym. (Enterprise photo – Parker O’Brien)

SARANAC LAKE – Saranac Lake’s Mik Denkenberger is a calm, cool and collected basketball player. There doesn’t seem to be a moment too big for the senior guard.

But you can now add a “1,000 point scorer” to that list of adjectives to describe him.

Denkenberger hit the milestone during his 35-point barrage in the Feb. 27 Section VII, Class B championship game against the Saranac Central Spartans.

But unlike normal 1,000-point celebrations, there was no stoppage or any sort of recognition.

“We were more focused on that game,” Denkenberger said, who delivered an MVP performance to guide the Red Storm to their second-straight sectional title.

But on Wednesday, in front of a packed gymnasium at his high school, Denkenberger finally got his recognition. His head coach, Daryl Crist, and athletic director Forest Morgan surprised him with his 1,000th point ball during the school’s spring sports meeting.

“I had no idea that was happening,” he said on Thursday. “I was excited to score a thousand, but I was probably just putting it in the past, but to be recognized like that was just great.”

Crist isn’t shocked to see Denkenberger reach the 1,000-point mark. He described him as a great kid who constantly puts in work both during the season and beyond it.

“It just kind of confirms that if you put in good time and work on your skill set and continue to improve, good things will come your way,” he said. “Scoring a thousand – it’s gonna be more than a thousand points in his high school career – is a special mark for most high school players.”

The coach isn’t wrong. The list of every Saranac Lake boys basketball player to score more than 1,000 career points is very short. Mike Buckley was the first to achieve the feat in the early 1960s and Connor Gach became the second in 2009.

Denkenberger said it hasn’t really hit him that he’s in that elite crew.

“It just feels amazing and I’m very grateful,” he said, with a smile.

It’s always been a possibility that Denkenberger could score 1,000 career points – he’s a dominant sharpshooter. But it wasn’t until the beginning of the season that he realized that he could actually do it. But the senior brushed it off to the side and hadn’t thought about it since.

When he actually scored his 1,000th point, Denkenberger didn’t know he hit the milestone … no one did. It wasn’t until two days later that he found out with his grandfather.

“(We) we’re going through all the points because he keeps track,” Denkenberger said. “He tallied it up and he was like, ‘Oh my god, I think you hit a thousand.’ We checked through like five times each, and figured out that I hit it.”

Denkenberger’s preference of team success in favor of individual honors is just who he is, Crist said. But the coach also took a little blame for not realizing Mik was close to 1,000 points.

“I actually didn’t check to see where anybody was, point-wise, though,” he said.

Denkenberger was glad to have accomplished this feat with this team. Most of his teammates – especially seniors Cedar Crist and Zack McCarthy – he’s been playing with since the third grade. That “selfless” mindset resonates with the team, too.

“I think they gravitate toward team success and then this one kind of snuck up on us,” Coach Crist said.

For the Red Storm, it seems to have worked in their favor so far. They’ve won back-to-back sectional titles and have already posted one of their best records in program history this season.

“Coach Crist has done such a good job with us,” Denkenberger said. “He’s worked for us since we were probably in fifth grade. We started playing AAU for him, and it just means so much to see all of that pay off.”

Coach Crist has watched Denkenberger and some of the other seniors grow into elite basketball players. He remembers them shooting hoops in his driveway, and sometimes even going against them in a game of one-on-one.

“I haven’t played those guys in a couple of years, because they’d probably beat me now,” he said.

Crist added that Denkenberger’s biggest area of improvement these past few years hasn’t just been his skillset. It’s been his confidence as a player.

“He does kind of what we stress, he attacks the rim,” Crist said. “He’s become a really good finisher at the rim and more of a consistent outside shooter, particularly at the 3-point line.”

It’s exactly why Denkenberger has achieved the difficult feat of scoring 1,000 points.

And if anyone knows how difficult it is to score 1,000 points, it’s Coach Crist.

He achieved the feat in the late 1980s at Holland Patent High School, before playing NCAA Division I basketball at Seton Hall. Crist did so without a 3-point line for two of his four varsity years – and another season derailed by injury.

“So, I still have more points than he has at this point,” Crist joked. “But, he might be able to catch me.”

“He played DI (basketball), so if I get close to him, that would be awesome,” Denkenberger said.