On the Bench with Byron Higgin

Many people wondered what would happen when Minneota played Waterville-Elysian-Morristown in the state Class A Volleyball finals.

They seemed, on paper to be two very even teams.

Sitting right on the floor next to the action, I probably saw some things people in the stands couldn’t see.

First, there was an intensity in the faces of the Vikings like I’d never seen before.

I didn’t have to ask them if they’d decided they’d step it up a notch after losing one of four sets to Fosston the day before.

It was evident on the Viking players faces that they had no intention of losing anything, not one set, and their actions proved me correct.

Second, this group of well-conditioned athletes don’t ever wear out.

Even their basketball coach Chad Johnston has often said they could run forever.

But this time, they were red in the faces, their necks were strained and they were, after three sets, definitely exhausted. But they kept on battling. One has to wonder what would have happened if they’d had to go to five sets.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This was a team effort in every sense of the word and every player on the Minneota squad played excellent.

But the three whom you’d expect to lead this squad stepped up in a very big way. Here’s what I mean. Look at this statistics. Morgan and Abby Hennen and Natalee Rolbiecki are the Minneota hitters.

And they did their job, to the tune of 39 of the 50 kills. But the most tell-tale statistic was the digs by these three athletes.

Of the 90 digs, Morgan and Abby and Natalee had 61 of them. That’s phenomenal. They put themselves directly into the match and did all they could to bring home the championship.