Between games on Thursday night, while music
was playing and fun was raging, Chanhassen volleyball coach Teryn Glenn turned
around in her seat on the Storm bench. Her husband and kids, ages 2 and 5, were
sitting a couple rows back. The coach smiled and waved.
It was a special moment – one of many, all over the state – as the 2021-22 high school sports and activities year began rolling in Minnesota. Thursday was the first day of competitions in volleyball, soccer, cross-country and girls swimming and diving. Girls tennis matches began a week earlier and the first football games were played a day later.
--In Perham on Saturday, more than 650 runners
competed in the Brave Like Gabe Invitational cross-country event.
--Before introducing the lineups for the volleyball match between Shakopee and Chanhassen, longtime Chanhassen PA pro Denny Laufenberger said, "Folks, it is great to be back in the gym!" The crowd erupted in cheers.
--Just prior to kickoff
on Friday night, with Delano and Chisago Lakes opening the football season in
Lindstrom, Chisago Lakes coach Bill Weiss gave the Wildcats one final inspirational
message as they stood shoulder to shoulder in five tight rows behind an end zone,
swaying back and forth in unison.
“We’ve busted our tails for weeks, for months, for these moments!,”
Weiss told them. “Cherish them! Take advantage of them! Let’s get
after it with everything we’ve got! Let’s do this! Right here! Right now!”
The players sprinted onto the field as the crowd
cheered. Yes, the magical sound of large crowds has returned … even though that
may feel a little strange after the spectator limits that were in place during
the 2020-21 season.
“It took
some getting used to, having people here and the nerves and the atmosphere,”
Shakopee volleyball coach Matt Busch said after his Sabers defeated Chanhassen
3-0. “It was an awesome atmosphere.”
Glenn said that as the national anthem was
played prior to the match, “I was thinking, ‘We're back, we're here, we're doing this.’
And I got a little emotional, especially after where we've been. I love being
here with them.”
At Chisago
Lakes, the football atmosphere was as perfect as can be. The Chisago Lakes
marching band, wearing dazzling new uniforms, came onto the field in two rows
as the percussion section marked their steps. The cheerleaders and Wildcat
mascot – with one proud student inside the costume – and a large, enthusiastic
student section were in game shape from the get-go. The dance team and a band
of little girls performed at halftime. Everyone smiled.
The football
game itself was a work of art. The home team opened the scoring on the first of
four TD runs by Ashton Pearson and the Delano Tigers tied it up when a pass by Wildcats
quarterback Nick Wasko was intercepted by ninth-grader Jack Scanlon and
returned 39 yards for a TD. As Wasko returned to the sideline, he saw a scribe scribbling
in a notebook and said in jest, “Don’t write that down.”
The Wildcats
played just one game last season, losing to Cambridge-Isanti when a two-point
conversion attempt was stopped short. They were in a similar position this
time, scoring to trail 27-26 with 3:40 left in the game. They went for two, ran
the same play they did against C-I, and the Tigers stopped them short.
Chisago
Lakes still had a chance, needing a defensive stop to get the ball back. That
looked for all the world as if it would happen when Delano lined up in punt formation
from its own 40-yard line with 2:46 to go. Trickeration ensured, and a pass gained
first-down yardage. A running play, a quarterback keeper and a kneel-down ended
the game and put the cap on an amazing evening.
The absolute,
unadulterated normalcy continued Saturday morning as football teams all over
the state – all but the 10 who played Zero Week games on Friday – gathered in
groups to hold scrimmages. In Lake City, the Tigers hosted teams from Lewiston-Altura,
Randolph, Red Wing, Wabasha-Kellogg and Zumbrota-Mazeppa on the vast expanse of
lush practice grass around their stadium.
Parents and
grandparents sat on lawn chairs, coaches called plays and shouted encouragement.
Trains rolled by, some carrying freight and some carrying humans on an Amtrak
adventure. One coach, slightly disheartened at a youngster who was learning to
read what was happening, said, “Read this right or I’m sending you to the
library.”
Afterward, finishing
a morning of working out the kinks under game situations, a coach said to his
players, “We made it. Nobody got hurt, we got it on film. Did you have fun?”
The kids responded with a sweaty, tired, happy chorus of affirmatives.
Fun. A very
simple word, a very important fact.
--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of
Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn
and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts.
Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org
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