Lonnie Morken was in his first decade as a
volleyball coach back in 2000 and 2001 when he brought his Mabel-Canton team to
the state tournament at the then-new Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul. Now,
21 years later, the Cougars are back.
Morken is in his 29th season as the
coach, bringing a stellar career record of 791-140 to state. One might think
that with such successful history, the Cougars would have been tournament
regulars. But Class A Section 1 is filled with quality teams who always send a
tough squad to state.
Xcel Energy Center opened in September 2000 and
the volleyball state tourney made its debut in the NHL arena that November.
“I was really young at that time and then we went again in
2001 and it was kind of like, ‘You know, geez, this is cool, we're gonna do this
every year,’ ” Morken said Friday after the Cougars were defeated by Mayer
Lutheran 3-1 in the Class A semifinals. Mabel-Canton will meet Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa
in Saturday’s third-place match, with Minneota and Mayer Lutheran playing for
the championship
Standing in a quiet corridor after the match,
Morken smiled when asked about the family aspect of this week’s experience. The
team includes his daughters Sophie, a senior, and Sahara, a sophomore; Lonnie
and his wife Stephanie have one older daughter, Sadie. Lonnie, who grew up in nearby
Spring Grove and graduated from Luther College in Iowa, is the athletic
director and a physical education teacher in Mabel-Canton.
“It's pretty amazing,” he said. “I
really wanted to experience this with them. And my wife Stephanie; when you
think about how the spouses kind of get lost, my wife is amazing. And to be
able to go through this together? I mean, I think about going to state all the
time, right? I don't obsess over it, but it’ll be whatever, 10:30 in the
morning and I'll see something or do something and I'll be like, ‘Oh my gosh,’
and it just brings me back to 2000 or 2001. And it's amazing to be able to do
this with my family.”
State tournament experience is
always a factor, and Mayer Lutheran held that advantage after playing at state regularly
in recent years. That edge can be big under the bright lights and way-up-in-the-sky
ceiling.
“We probably have a couple of grain bins
around Mabel that are this big but we don't have anything like this,” Morken
said of Xcel Energy Center. “Our section prepares us well because we're
traditionally so strong in volleyball. Many of our kids came up here and
experienced the state tournament last year, and I really felt that we had the
potential to get here this year. I'm so glad that so many of our kids got to experience
it as a fan but it's not the same down on the court.”
First
Trip To State Is A Real Rush (City)
Rush
City, the Class 2A Section 7 champion, is at state volleyball for the first
time in school history, and the future should be strong for the Tigers. The
14-player roster includes just four seniors: Mackenzie Ribich, Veronica Hemming,
Kayden LaMont and Emmalee Angstman.
The
Tigers lost to Annandale in Thursday’s quarterfinals and met Pipestone in
Friday night’s consolation round.
“There have been a lot of subsection
championship matches and there's been section championship matches. It's been a
long building process,” said coach Eric Telander. “I'm happy where we’re at, so we can
all hang our hat on that. But it's taken a lot of work from the community and
the girls over the years to get to this point.
“We're just thrilled to be here and
I'm happy about this experience. It's been so tremendous this week. The support
from the community has been unexpectedly amazing. I knew we'd be supported, but
it's been overwhelming. It’s something that will be cherished and remembered
forever.”
Rush City sophomore McKenna Garr
said it was a little overwhelming to take the court at Xcel Energy Center for
the first time.
“It's kind of like at first you have
a moment of shock when you see the big arena where you're going to play,” she
said. “You think, ‘OK, I'm going to get myself used to this.’ So you sit and
you watch a couple teams first when you get here. Then you go in the locker
rooms and get ready. You hang out with your team and then you get on the court
and it's a whole other feeling. You get down there and you see all these
people. They're staring down at you and you’ve just got to focus on the game and
block out the noise.”
Tiger junior Cora Sayotovich agreed,
saying, “We won our section and it was a really good feeling. And then over the
course of a week, when we had some down time, just practicing, it was like the
feeling kind of went away a little bit. Then we were on our way here, we
checked into our hotel, we get our own locker room. And then I mean you walk
out and you’re just kind of like, ‘Holy crap.’ This is crazy. It's a feeling
I've never felt before.”
Hard Work Pays Off For Minneota
The Class A championship match will
be a rematch from one year ago, when Mayer Lutheran defeated Minneota. Both are
high-caliber programs; Mayer Lutheran won state titles in 1982, 2016, 2017 and
2021, while Minneota did so in 2006, 2018 and 2019.
Minneota’s success is based on lots
of sweat equity, said coach Hayley Fruin.
“There’s a lot of offseason work,
definitely. And I'm sure a lot of coaches will say that, but these guys are
playing club ball year round and they're playing with the best athletes in the
area and they don't miss a summer practice. We had practice at 5 a.m. this
summer, and a lot of them have jobs, and they were all coming day in and day
out. They came every day and they might have been tired but it starts there, just
really trying to focus in on getting better every single day and never being
satisfied.”
Friday was a busy day for Minneota
fans, with the volleyball team playing in the early afternoon and the Vikings’
football team meeting Breckenridge in the Class A football state quarterfinals
in Alexandria at 7 p.m.
Fruin
said the volleyball team would watch the football game at their hotel via
livestream by NSPN.TV, followed by volleyball film study to prepare for
Saturday’s match. And no matter what happens in the final test of the season,
it’s been a great ride.
“Tomorrow, obviously, no matter
what, win or lose, we're going home and we're done,” she said. “So let's just
make it a good one. Let's be competitive. Let's play well, right? We'll
strategize tonight and tomorrow but it's all about having fun now. I mean,
there's nothing more you can do. You can't play scared because it's over
tomorrow. So let's have fun and play together like we've been doing all along.”
--To watch the state volleyball tournament and state football quarterfinals online, click here: nspn.tv/MSHSL
--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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