Andover, MN

The place: Minnehaha Academy

The time: 1pm 11-7-2009

The teams: Meadow Creek vs Mayer Lutheran

The stakes: Who goes to State?

Minnehaha was rocking with the pep bands from Meadow Creek and Mayer Lutheran switching back and forth. Meadow Creek played after games 1 and 3 and Mayer played game 2 and 4 if necessary.

Game one our Saints started off a little slow but quickly gained an edge in the match. The score was close throughout but our Ladies took game 1 25-22. Great start girls!

Game 2 had Mayer Lutheran scoring the first 6 points. Our girls slowly fought back to even the score at 12. Then Mayer jumped out again. We fought back but Mayer ended up winning game 2 25-19.

Game 3 was another closely fought battle with Mayer looking to take an edge in the match. Both teams were fighting hard for every point. The score was 20-18 when Meadow Creek checked in a player who had been on the bench for 3 weeks with an ankle sprain. She finished out the game serving 5 consecutive points and Meadow Creek had the edge once again!

Game 4 and Mayer Lutheran looked like they weren't going out without a fight. They had some great kills and had the edge. Mayer won the game to force a decisive game 5 winning 25-19. State rides on the final game! The crowd from both teams were ready for a great finish!

Game 5 was close throughout. Each point was critical. The fans were louder than ever. With the saints leading 13-12, Mayer had a kill go out, but wait, the up ref says Meadow Creek touched the ball. 13-13 game 5, what else could you ask for?

Meadow Creek went on to win the last two points even though Mayer had several great spikes, Meadow Creek simply refused to let the ball hit the floor. Once again they fed off the opponents energy to catapult them to victory and to the Minnesota State High School tournament! Unbelievable! They have the hearts of champions and are ready to take on the top teams in the state!

See you at the Xcel Energy Center Thursday! Don't miss it.

Our 8 seniors below!

The first game of the night pitted #1 seed Southwest Christian against #2 seed Mayer Lutheran. Mayer Lutheran won the match 3-0. So now we know who we will face on Saturday if we get by Heritage Christian.

Heritage came out strong and took an early lead in the first 2 games. Our Lady Saints just kept playing at a strong pace and limiting their own errors. The first game was won 25-15 by the Saints who were pounding the ball. In the 2nd game after trailing 6-2, we pulled even at 7 and then the match stayed even to 18 with every point being fought hard for. One last run by Meadow Creek proved too much for Heritage and the Saints won 25-20. 20 points was the most Heritage had managed in 5 games so far this year against our girls.

The final game of the match was amazing. The Saints seemed to feed off the power of Heritage. As Heritage pounded harder, our Saints fought even harder. At one point Heritage had several spikes in a row and should have easily had the point, but we never let the ball hit the ground and made a few statement kills of our own. If they can manage to feed off of the oponents energy like this every game, they will be tough to beat again this year.

The Saints ended up winning 25-18 to maove on to Saturday Section Finals at Minnehaha Academy 1pm. You'll want to be there to see them first hand. One of the Heritage parents said they were the best team they have played all year long. A nice compliment from a team who had only lost 5 games all season.

Well the first 2 games of sections went by without a hitch. The girls quickly took care of Minneapolis Edison in 3 games. Last night West Lutheran came out and looked better than Edison, but we dropped them in 3 as well. Therese was able to use all of her bench in both sets and still maintain an edge over the competition.

Thursday night the sub-section Championship will be held at West Lutheran in Plymouth. Southwest Christian will face Mayer Lutheran at 6 and Our Lady Saints will take on Heritage Christian at 8 pm. SHould be some great volleyball so be sure to come out and cheer on our Saints!

Wow! 1st place in the Mora invitational. The girls did a great job in winning this tournament. They quickly dispatched St Cloud Apollo, then Pillager. North Branch in the semi finals was not able to keep up with our team. Finally it was Maple Lake in the finals. The first game was won by 2 points and the battle continued into the 2nd game. That one was also 25-23 giving the Lady Saints their first tourney win of the season ad priming them for a long run to state.

Orono came to our court on Tuesday the 13th. This was senior night and the last regular season home game for our 8 seniors. The girls played them tough and took all 3 games of the set, even while mixing in the younger girls on the team.

Next uo, the "Battle for the paddle!" Let's bring the paddle home again ladies!

This is the year for Meadow Creek Saint's 8 senior Volleyball players. They have been playing together at the Varsity level since 8th grade, when they formed the first B squad in Meadow Creek's history. They just knocked off both Champlin Park and Maple Grove last week and started conference play against New Life Academy at home with a win. Here are some other highlights for the year. I will update this blog as the season progresses through the State Tourney.

The girls stunned Heritage in a blowout and probably their best played game ever. There wasn't hardly a spike that didn't go uncontested. Every spike was hard, the sets were great. Deep serves kept Heritage off balance all night and they never built up any momentum. This was Heritage's first conference loss of the year.

Bethel Showcase!

The girls started out slow and never recovered against Leroy Ostrander in the first match of the Class A Showcase at Bethel. They came out hot in this game and never looked back winning decisively in both games against Buffalo Lake Hector. Nice turnaround ladies! In the closest match of the night, our girls pulled off two 2 point victories against Bertha Hewitt. Both games came down to the wire and the girls never relented to the pressure. In a strange twist, Bertha Hewitt received the 2nd place nod over us on point differential. We ended up 3rd in the pool and play tomorrow in the lower bracket. Underwood beat us here last year and caught us flat footed in the first game. We took over in the 2nd game with a nice win to keep the match alive and then thumped Underwood 15-2 in the third game of the match. Onto the 9th place game! Again we came out a little soft in the first game and didn't start the second very either, trailing 14-8 when Therese called a timeout. We then went on to a 17-7 run to win the game. The 3rd game was close but Nevis beat us in the end. Great tourney girls! We finished 4-2 and 10th place against some very competitive teams.

Apple Valley Tourney.

The team went out and beat the first team we faced and then drew Apple Valley in the 2nd match. Apple Valley had a great attack and we never quite matched their intensity. In the 3rd game we played Minneota. We lost a close game in the first set and then lost a player to an ankle sprain in the 2nd game and didn't pick up the pace enough to keep even with thwm. The final game was against Maple Grove and we played even with them and brought it up a notch to win both games in the end to finish 7th place.

Last night we played Providence Academy and won in three. Mora tourney this weekend!

Keep up the energy girls and finish the year strong!