169th Article at the Independent

TMB and RTR win tournaments over weekend

CHRIS DRUMMOND

Sports Writer

ARLINGTON- The Tracy-Milroy-Balaton Panthers volleyball team took home first place over the weekend participating in the Sibley East tournament.

The Panthers won five matches over their two days and improved their record to 14-3 over the season.

Some of the highlights from the tournament include Ella Kamrud leading her team in kills with 30,while teammate Amber Hensch came in second with 26 kills. Senior Grace Dolan would lead her team her in digs with 51 with both Hensch and Elizabeth Fultz tying for second in digs with 31.

Head coach of the Panthers, Rick Haberman spoke on the team’s performance in winning the tournament.

“We were able to serve pretty well all day long, and that was a major key to our success in this tournament,” Haberman said. “In our Sibley East match we overcame a 12-21 deficit in the first set to pull out a 26-24 win, then in set two we made several big plays down the stretch to earn a 30-28 victory. We played our best defense of the day in the championship match against a very tall LCWM team.”

The Tracy-Milroy-Balaton Panthers are now (14-3) and will travel to face off against KMS next Tuesday.

Class A showcase tournament

BURNSVILLE- Several area volleyball teams competed over this past weekend at the Class A showcase in Burnsville. The Russell Tyler Ruthton Knights won the tournament with a 5-0 record including defeating their conference opponent the Minneota Vikings. The Vikings came in third with a 4-1 record and the Canby Lancers finished the tournament with a 2-3 record.

RTR

RTR started off the tournament going against the 13th ranked team in the MNVBCA poll, HLO-F. The Knights would beat them in straight sets and faced off three other ranked opponents in the tournament. The Knights would defeat them all in Kenyon Wanamingo, who was ranked sixth, the Vikings, who was ranked second and in the championship match defeated Meyer Lutheran who was ranked No.1.

The Knights came into the tournament ranked No. 4 in the class. Head coach of the Knights Daynica Brown elaborated on winning the Class A showcase tournament.

“I am so proud of our team,” Brown said. It was truly a team win. I am also extremely excited that we could represent our area well. We have a lot of great and tough teams in the Southwest corner that dont get recognized a lot at that level.”

Abby Carr for the Knights led her team in kills with 52 in the tournament and also had seven blocks. Teammate Ella Hesse was second in kills with 47 and led her team in digs with 59. Gabi Borreson had 84 assists and Lexi Schreurs filled up the stat sheet by having 55 digs, 52 assists and six blocks.

RTR is now (15-2) and will travel to Dawson to face-off against the Dawson-Boyd Blackjacks on Tuesday.

Minneota

The Vikings came in to the tournament with just one loss on their season and have been battle tested throughout with close matches. However, the Vikings would breeze through the first three matches of the showcase defeating Spring Grove, Floodwood and BGMR all in straight sets.

This would set up a match in the semifinals of the showcase with conference opponent RTR.

The Vikings would drop the first set, 20-25 only to recover and bounce back to win the second set 25-15 forcing a winner take all third set. Ultimately, the Vikings would lose a close battle in the third to the eventually champion RTR 15-12. The Vikings would win their final match of the tournament in straight sets over BA. Head coach of the Vikings Hayley Fruin added some thoughts on tournament and team’s performance.

“Overall it was a great tournament for us,” Fruin said. “We are young and a lot of these girls have not played varsity. Some of them matured over the weekend and it’s only going to help as the season progresses. We battled and are aware of some areas we need to improve and we will be really focusing on that these next few weeks. Overall a lot of growth and I’m happy to see how they responded in that 3rd place match after losing a tough game to get to the championship.”

Lyzah Sussner for the Vikings led in digs with 28. Ireland Stassen led in assists with 69, led in aces with six and was second in kills with 27 and second in digs with 15. Teammate Elivia Faris led in kills with 38 for the tournament.

The Minneota Vikings are now (15-2) and will travel next Tuesday to face-off against CMCS.

Canby

The Canby Lancers ended the tournament on a high note, winning their last match against Cleveland in three sets. The Lancers got their 10th win of the season at this tournament and 11th place finish at showcase.

Freshman Karlie Wollum led her team in kills with 33 for the tournament and also came in second with 49 digs. Sophomore Aliyah Rangaard led her team in digs with 71 . Emily Nelson had 55 assists for the tournament and Paige Nelson had 53 assists. Head coach of the Lancers Jenai Wright shared a few thoughts on the weekend.

“This was a great tournament for us to attend,” Wright said. “We had the opportunity to compete against many top A schools in the state.”

The Canby Lancers are (10-8) and they will travel next Tuesday to play against the MACCRAY Wolverines.