Minneota Volleyball

At one time on Thursday at the Minneota Volleyball scrimmage, there were three former Minneota Vikings all coaching their teams.

There is, of-course, Hayley (Hennen) Fruin, the current Viking coach who played for the 2006 Minneota state champions and once coached at Cottonwood.

Then there was Taya (Kockelman) Lindahl, the Redwood Valley coach in her first year as head volleyball coach, directing her troops against Fruin.

And finally, former Minneota Vikings Coach Stephanie Hennen, who coached several Vikings teams to as high as second in the state and was an assistant coach when Fruin played for the 2006 state champs, was coaching the Lakeview team from Cottonwood.

“That really is something to see them all out there,” said former Minneota player Kelsey (Hennen) Buysse, who played with Lindahl and for Hennen.

Lindahl (Kockelman), who is also the head girls’ basketball coach, stepped in to replace last year’s coach after last year’s coach resigned.

She took her basketball team to the state last year and now hopes to inflict that same kind of enthusiasm into the volleyball team.

Coach Stephanie Hennen coached two years at Montevideo but stepped over to Cottonwood to coach the Lakers this year — vaulted herself into direct competition against Fruin and the state championship Vikings. Oddly, when Fruin coached at Cottonwood, she opposed Hennen, who was then coaching Minneota.

Now, they’ll be on opposite sides of the court — but still find themselves competing against each other.

Fruin, of-course, is rebuilding a new season after losing two all-state players, Lydia Sussner and Morgan Kockelman. But she’s re-tooled and her team is ranked No. 4 heading into the new season. Ironically, a fourth Minneota graduate and coach was in the stands on Thursday as she gets ready to launch a new career.

Leah Fadness, who coached the Yellow Medicine East Sting the past two seasons, resigned her position and is taking up referring high school volleyball this fall.

“It’s something new for me but I’m excited about it,” said Fadness. It’s one thing to have a great program, which Minneota has. It’s quite another to see former players and coach spin off and take what they’ve learned to other programs. In Minneota’s case, it’s a matter of success breeding success. And there’s like a lot of other programs reaping the rewards of Minneota’s success.

AS A SIDE NOTE: The Lakeview volleyball team, led by Coach Stephanie Hennen, turned back Class AA Redwood Valley and Hennen’s former setter, Taya (Kockelman) Lindahl in Thursday’s season opener match-up at Cottonwood.

The Lakers were able to rebound from a tightly-contested first set loss to sweep the final three sets and take the match 3-1 This was Lindahl’s first match as a volleyball head coach. It also was Hennen’s first match as head coach of the Lakeview Lakers.

When Hennen coached at Minneota, Lindahl (then Kockelman), was the starting setter for the Vikings for four years. Both played in state tournaments together.

The situation will get even saltier later in the season when Minneota Coach Hayley Fruin coaches against Hennen.

Fruin played when Hennen was a coach, later coached at Lakeview and now will face Hennen as Minneota’s coach with Hennen at Lakeview. Did you get all of that? By-the-way, when Fruin played at Minneota — she was a Hennen at that time.

BY-THE-WAY: Another former Minneota Viking, Molly Hennen, is the head coach at Lac qui Parle Valley. She is an elementary teacher in Appleton.