Now that another high school fall sports season is “in the books,” and the calendar has turned to November — with the election behind us — a long winter is likely approaching. Before turning our attention to basketball, wrestling and hockey, a view back to the past fall is certainly appropriate.
First of all, here’s a huge and hearty congratulations to Fulda sophomore Morgan Gehl. Wow, has she been impressive! In most area girls’ cross country races, she is so far ahead that meet officials should really plan on having a second lead cart — so the rest of the runners can follow that rather than looking for Gehl who is usually out of sight, way up front.
Morgan capped another great season of distance running (she has been amazing on the track each spring, too) with a third-place finish in the Class A state championships at Northfield. Gehl’s time of 17:53.9 over the 5,000-meter course was the fifth best of all 352 competing girls, running faster than 174 big-school Class AA girls! Only two girls in Class A — the Ping sisters (Grace and Lauren) from Winona Cotter — and just two from Class AA (Emily Covert of Minneapolis Washburn and Lauren Peterson from Farmington) ran faster times than Morgan.
Secondly, hats off to Adrian High School’s always team-oriented varsity volleyball squad, coached for the first-year by Brittany Jackson, who was an assistant coach for the Dragons the three previous seasons. Adrian finished an incredible season with a 27-4 overall record, including a share of the Red Rock Conference championship (9-1 in conference matches) and a most-impressive run through the South Sub-Section Tournament, posting wins over Westbrook-Walnut Grove, Tracy-Milroy-Balaton and Red Rock Central.
It was the first time the Dragons had ever played in a district or sub-sectional championship match and they made the most of it last Thursday evening at SMSU in Marshall, winning the title with a 3-1 victory over RRC on game scores of 25-21, 25-21, 18-25 and 25-23.
Adrian’s fabulous season ended with a loss to Class A’s top-ranked team, the perennial powerhouse Minneota Vikings in the Section 3A championship match at SMSU Saturday. But, the Dragons should certainly be proud and pleased with their memorable moments they enjoyed together playing high school volleyball in the autumn of 2018.
The same could be said about another highly-successful football campaign by the injury-riddled Murray County Central Rebels, who won eight of 11 games this season, including a pair of victories in the sectional playoffs as they advanced to the championship game for the second time in three years. MCC battled Springfield in a very close game at SMSU Saturday, falling just one point short (15-14) of playing in the state tournament like they did two years ago.
Heron Lake-Okabena’s young varsity volleyball squad (three sophomores and a freshman were a major part of the action) had its share of highlights this fall and the first-year pairing of Heron Lake-Okabena and Fulda for football was a huge success with increased participation numbers and a trio of varsity victories. All three of those wins were pulled out as a result of lots of teamwork prevailing through several exciting and closely-competitive late-game situations.
Several young cross country runners, including HL-O seventh-grader Tim Salentiny and MCC seventh-graders Brylei Schreier and Brealyn Damm had great seasons as junior high runners with up-front finishes nearly every time they raced at that level.
And, finally, congratulations to MCC junior Justin Clarke on his fine late-season surge and his third straight state-meet qualification as the Rebels’ best boy cross country runner. Clarke was the team’s lead runner in all 10 meets and ended the year on a high note with very good runs at both the section and state meets.
