MACA volleyball rolled past the higher-seeded team in Thursday night competition. The Willmar paper said the match was played in Glenwood, but that might not please the Starbuck people. The Section 3AA-North championship match was played at Minnewaska Area High School. The whole idea of building that school in such a remote place was to be equal distances from Glenwood and Starbuck, because small town politics was really important back then.
The orange and black was second-seeded going into Thursday's competition. And, on the other side of the net was the No. 1 seed: Paynesville. This wasn't going to be easy, at least not on paper. We can never assume the top seed will garner the top trophy. Chris Berman of ESPN always used to say: "That's why they play the game." We not only beat those Paynesville Bulldogs, we did so in a sweep! Not only that, the game scores weren't really close. Consider: 25-17, 25-16 and 25-13.
The Willmar paper article had a byline with two writers. Just like Lennon and McCartney, I guess. I didn't see anything about the article that would have required two.
To be honest, I was skeptical that our team was going to get through this match. So, I wasn't going to post about it until Sunday or Monday. But now I want to acknowledge the success in an expeditious way, so after brewing a cup of strong instant coffee, here I go again! I wrote newspaper articles about Tiger sports for 27 years and I know the expectations or demands by sports parents for this sort of thing. Why do I keep punishing myself? I must like it. And, I must also feel some pretty strong enthusiasm about it, even though, as I told my restaurant waitress this morning: "The more you try to do for sports parents, they always want more."
Tom Carrington is a morning patron of that restaurant. What a day he will have tomorrow (Saturday) when his granddaughters Maddie and Meredith will run in state cross country! We want them to excel up to the standards set by Tom's daughter Anna.
The volleyball Tigers now own 19 wins for the season. We'll take a sterling 19-7 record into the next challenge which will have Marshall, the "Tigers" like us, as the opponent. The orange and black will rule. But which orange and black team will prevail? Surely lots of fans will pile into the Southwest State University gym to find out. Match time is 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The Marshall Tigers come out of Section 3AA-South. They prevailed Thursday with a four-game win over Redwood Valley. Paynesville ended its season with a 19-5 record.
The stat story
Bailey Marty came at the Bulldogs with three serving aces. Kenzie Stahman and LaRae Kram each had one. The Willmar paper has been spelling Kenzie's last name as "Stahlman" all season. Are they wrong or am I wrong? The primary setters were Kram with 14 assists and Liz Dietz with eleven. Riley Decker produced three assists and Stahman had one.
The crowd-pleasing hitting category had Marty leading the way with her eleven kills. Lexi Pew and Sophie Carlsen each had five kills. Kenzie Hockel and Jen Solvie each pounded four, and Emma Berlinger had three. Carlsen and Solvie each had one ace block. Decker was most in command digging up the ball. On this night she posted the team-best 26 digs. Marty had eleven digs, Macey Libbesmeier had nine and Kram seven.
The green-themed Paynesville team had one serving ace which was by Olivia Riley. Paynesville's top setter was Madi Leyendecker with 13 assists. Abby Schaefer led the green in hitting with eight kills. Paynesville failed to execute any ace blocks. Olivia Riley had the team-best ten digs.
The Willmar paper must have made some adjustments before the new school year. The paper has been totally reliable as a source of football information, whereas over the previous few years, it could be very inconsistent and sloppy with information, although coaches probably bear most blame for the latter. Maybe some meetings were held to try to get coaches more fired-up on media relations. I can only speculate on what the problems were before. I'm out of the loop on such things now.
Volleyball information has been reliable too although I have seen discrepancies in the spelling of MACA names between the paper and the roster on Maxpreps.
I hope more than a few players, parents and fans take the trouble to check out my blogs. Also, don't forget to check your team's home page on Maxpreps.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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