Vikings capture Camden Championship

It doesn’t matter how good you are, somebody is going to want to take you down.
That’s a fact of life, and the Minneota volleyball team has been finding that out.
MACCRAY, “Came out ready to go. They were scrappy,” said Minneota Coach Hayley Fruin.
The Vikings had to hold off a late scare as the Wolverines pushed within 23-21 in the first set before Minneota hung on to win, 25-22.
“We didn’t feel comfortable,” said Fruin. But her Vikings pulled it together to win easily, 25-9, then  25-20 to capture the Camden Conference Championship Monday night at home.
The North-South battle pushed Minneota’s record to 25-3 and left MACCRAY at 18-10-1.
So what was the difference between the Viking team that “survived” the first set but came back to win easily in the second one?
“We served tough the second set,” said Coach Fruin. Morgan Hennen, who served the Vikings from a 2-1 lead to an 8-1 advantage, “Was pushing the serves deep,” thus making MACCRAY work harder to return them.
And, Morgan’s sister Abby took control of the net. “Abby had a tremendous night,” said Coach Fruin. She banged down 14 kills. Natalee Rolbiecki added to that effort with six more kills as Minneota took control of the match.
Not that the final set was easy — it wasn’t. After Minneota led 13-7, MACCRAY tightened it up to 20-17. But Abby Frie came up big at the net, Abby Rost held steady at the serving line and eventually Ellie Pesch served the final two points to give the conference crown to Minneota.
“Their middle hitters, (led by Kylee Kimpling with six kills and Elsie Sumner and Annie Dykema with three kills each) did a great job for them,” said Coach Fruin.
While Minneota got pretty good serving from the likes of Abby Hennen, McKenna Yost and Morgan Hennen, Coach Fruin was left feeling like her Vikings need to work on serving. “We need to work on more aggressive serving behind the line,” she said. “We will be working on that in practice.”
McKenna Yost served up 27 assists and that helped her earn co-player of the game honors along with Abby Hennen.
Minneota plays Windom tonight (Tuesday, October 15) in the final regular season game before the start of the playoffs.

Statistics:
KILLS: Abby Hennen 14; Natalee Rolbiecki 9; Morgan Hennen 6; Abby Frie 5.
SERVING (No., good, aces) Abby Hennen 11-10-2; McKenna Yost 19-19-1; Morgan Hennen 16-15-3.
DIGS: Rolbiecki 9, Abby Hennen 7, Ellie Pesch 3.
BLOCKS: Abby Rost 1, Yost 2, Rolbiecki 1, Frie 1, Morgan Hennen 1.
SET ASSISTS: Yost 27, Ireland Stassen 8.