Fantastic 'I've never seen that before' comeback

Coach Hayley Fruin stood at the end of the court, dumbfounded.

The fans behind her were stunned, unable to yell, or even to speak.

Leading the match 2-0 on the strength of 25-17 and 25-15 wins, the Vikings were in control.

Then the roof fell in.

Canby pounded out a 6-0 lead before Minneota even scored. Then built their advantage to 14 points at 19-5.

"The girls were making lots of errors — a lot of errors," said Minneota Coach Hayley Fruin.

"We were beating ourselves," the coach added.

Then, suddenly, the momentum switched. Minneota got the ball and Abby Hennen began serving with Minneota down, 19-7. When she finished, it was 22-13, Canby.

There wasn't much Coach Fruin could do. "I had no times out, I'd called both of them earlier," she said.

So she decided, "Just let them play."

With Ellie Pesch at the serving line, Lydia Sussner began to patrol the net for the Vikings — and just as suddenly the Canby defense fell apart. They palmed the ball, hit it out of bounds, pounded the ball into the net, mis-played serves and just plan handed the game back to Minneota.

Pesch served eight straight points, with Sussner pounding down a kill to pull the Vikings within two at 22-20.

They weren't done.

Setter Morgan Kockelman went hard to the floor to make a save, the ball popped up and Sussner rammed it down to make it 24-24. Then just as quickly Lizzy Gillingham put one to the floor and the Vikings had come all the way back — from 14 points down — from that miserable 6-0 deficit to start the game — and suddenly they were right there, facing the nearly impossible and beating it back with determination.

Finally, Natalee Rolbiecki smashed home a kill for the Vikings first lead of the game at 26-25 — and on the final point Canby simply ran out of gas and couldn't return the ball.

It was over, the comeback was complete and the players and crowd all stood in total shock and disbelief at what they'd just seen.

"That was phenomenal," said Coach Fruin. "I can't believe it," she said.

Neither could anyone else, except maybe Lizzy Gillingham. "I knew we would get it going. We just lost our focus — but we found it again and then played Minneota volleyball."

"I can't believe we did that. But we would be the team to do it," an unrestrained Abby Hennen said.

"Why?" she was asked. "Because we have so many people who can put the ball down," Hennen answered.

No doubt, the one thing that makes volleyball what it is, would be "momentum." Once Minneota stopped Canby's momentum, they found their own and rode it out to the end.

"We believed in ourselves," said setter Morgan Kockelman. "We got it in our head, made a lot of errors but finally figured dit out. It was momentum," Kockelman said.

That and, "We didn't want to go down to them (Canby)," Kockelman smiled.

Minneota will play defending section champ Tracy-Milroy-Balaton for the Section 3A crown and a trip to the state tournament.

The Panthers were winners over Windom Area, 25-20; 25-19; 25-16 to advance to the championship.

It will be held at at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at SMSU in Marshall.