Congratulations to Adrian High School’s varsity volleyball squad on its co-championship of the Red Rock Conference and its advancement to the semifinals of the South Sub-Section 3A Tournament.
By the time the paper comes out on Wednesday, we will know if the up-and-coming Dragons will be playing for the South Sub-Section championship at Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) in Marshall or if their fabulous season would have ended with a loss to perennial power and five-time defending sub-section champion Tracy-Milroy-Balaton.
Looking back at the tournament program’s history page, Adrian has never played in a District 8 or South Sub-Section of Section 3A championship match. T-M-B defeated Windom in each of the last three years and the Panthers have won six of the last seven titles.
Heron Lake-Okabena, as the Southwest Star Concept (SSC) Quasars, won the sub-section crown in 2006, defeating Fulda in the finals. The HL-O district was runner-ups five times (2004, 2005 and 2007 as SSC, 2012 as Southwestern United, and 2014 as HL-O).
Murray County Central was the sub-section runner-up three times (to Windom in both 2008 and 2010 before being defeated by T-M-B in the 2013 finals). Slayton was the District 8 runner-up in 1983.
Fulda was a four-time runner-up in the 1980s (’81, ’82, ’84 and ’85) and finished second three more times (2001, 2003 and 2006). Fulda won the championship in 2002, defeating Sioux Valley-Round Lake-Brewster in the battle of the Raiders.
This year’s Adrian team, coached by Brittany Jackson and assisted by Fulda native Jes Hermeling, has been impressive all fall as indicated by an awesome overall record of 25-3, including a sub-section quarterfinal sweep over Westbrook-Walnut Grove (25-14, 25-16, 25-22).
The second-seeded Dragons were a remarkable 10-1 in the very competitive Red Rock Conference, sharing the title with fourth-seeded Red Rock Central (17-9 overall). Adrian won its head-to-head match against the Falcons (at Lamberton, way back on September 13) in a four-set thriller (25-27, 25-16, 25-21, 26-24). But a home-court five-set loss by the Dragons to Southwest Minnesota Christian (September 27) gave RRC — which ran the table after its loss to Adrian — a chance to earn a share of the conference championship.
Togetherness has been the key concept for Adrian’s success this fall, according to senior middle hitter Avery Balster, who was interviewed by The Globe’s Aaron Hagen after the Dragons’ convincing victory over W-WG at Adrian last Friday evening.
Regardless of how Tuesday’s match against T-M-B comes out, the 2018 volleyball season will go down as a huge success for Adrian High School.
Congratulations, of course, to Fulda sophomore Morgan Gehl and MCC junior Justin Clarke, who will each represent the Murray County Central / Fulda co-op in this year’s state cross country meet. Both runners are returning to compete on the campus of St. Olaf College in Northfield — Gehl for the fourth straight time and Clarke for a third consecutive year.
Gehl impressively won the Section 3A girls’ race at Luverne last Thursday, outrunning a pair of top-notch state-ranked challengers by a long ways. Her time of 17:48.0 over the 5,000-meter distance is her best ever and was the second-fastest time run by any Class A girl during the eight sectional meets.
Only, two-time defending state champion Tierney Wolfgram (Math and Science Academy) ran a faster time, winning Section 4A at Battle Creek Regional Park with her time of 17:29.6. Winona Cotter’s Ping sisters — Grace (17:49.9) and Lauren (18:09.8) — finished up front at the Section 1A Meet at the Northern Hills Golf Course in Rochester with slightly slower times than Gehl ran at Luverne.
Clarke utilized a very strong finishing effort to place fourth — out of 146 finishers — in the highly-competitive boys’ race at Luverne, beating both of the Mountain Lake Area runners who finished ahead of him at the Red Rock Conference Meet 10 days earlier, clocked at 17:06.6.
And, a big congratulations and best of luck to MCC’s courageous football team which has won two playoff games (a 28-0 victory over Adrian in the Section 3A quarterfinals and a 45-20 triumph over Minnesota Valley Lutheran in Saturday’s semifinals). The top-seeded Rebels will take a 7-2 record into Friday’s sectional title game at SMSU’s Mattke Field when they tangle with the third-seeded Springfield Tigers (6-4) who defeated second-seeded New Ulm Cathedral in a close game Saturday, 29-22.
Game time Friday afternoon in Marshall is at 2 p.m. The winner advances to the quarterfinals of the Class A state football tournament.
