- You Don't Have to Be Over Six Feet to Crush a Volleyball Well, OK, it doesn't hurt, but we saw some absolutely inspired hitting from at least two players well under six feet: 5' 9" senior Jillian Bauer put down 23 hard-earned kills for Verona against Divine Savior Holy Angels and 5' 8" senior Annie Kunes had 17 kills for Big Foot against Catholic Memorial. Yes, we're sure there are others. Let us know.
- Being Unranked Can Have a Silver Lining Hats off to Owen-Withee for its impressive run to the silver volleyball
- Dasher Fans Only Had to Pay $1.60 Per Set Divine Savior Holy Angels' fans witnessed back-to-back five-set thrillers, winning over Verona in the quarters and losing a heartbreaker to Fond du Lac in the semis. That's getting your money's worth.
- Er, Didn't They Lose a Lot to Graduation? How impressive is the performance of Fond du Lac, Catholic Memorial and Tomahawk to reach their respective finals after losing impact 2011s like Kayla Pickart (Fond du Lac '11), Patti Abshire (Catholic Memorial '11) and Kaitlin Doughty (Tomahawk '11) to the next level. (Note: We just picked one from each school to prove our point--we know there are more we could have chosen).
Let us know anything positive you observed.
2 comments:
"A team can lose 5-6 starters and come back the next year and win a state championship if the one starter you return is Jo-Leigh VerVelde... (although Racine St. Catherine's move up to D2 doesn't hurt either)"
Grantsburg fits the bill in a couple of these categories. The team lost (arguably) the best coach in the NATION to retirement (Bill Morrin), four starters (3 were all-conference, ONE 3 year all-conference/2 year all-state setter Emily Cole and ONE 4-year all-conference/3-year all-state outside hitter Kortney Morrin). The 2011 team had 2 brand new outside hitters at 5'5" barefoot who were on the state leader board all season and no one over 5'9" (barefoot). 5'9" middle blocker Carly Larson was one of the state leaders in hitting percentage. The team returned just 2 regular players and put together a great group of diminutive, steady, hungry, all-around athletes. The 2011 state D3 field was probably the most evenly matched batch of teams to ever achieve this status.
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