Photo by Sam Thiel Minneota’s Abby Rost (6) and Natalee Rolbiecki (8) go up for a block attempt during their Class A championship match against W-E-M on Saturday.

ST. PAUL — As the old saying goes, “Defense wins championships.” That statement rang especially true for the Minneota volleyball team on Saturday afternoon, as a relentless defensive performance by the Vikings guided them to their third overall title and second in a row.

While Minneota’s offensive attack was certainly impressive, it was the constant pressure at the net coupled with a back row that went after every ball that fell their way that was the biggest storyline of the match.

As a team, Minneota recorded seven total blocks. Abby Frie led the way with a solo block and three assists, while Abby Hennen added a solo and two assists and Ireland Stassen had one solo and one assist. Natalee Rolbiecki and Abby Rost each chipped in one assist to add to Vikings effort.

Minneota coach Hayley Fruin said they were able to put together a good gameplan to slow down the Buccaneers hitters and felt their middles did a nice job of staying disciplined up front.

“We’ve kind of just went over all of their [W-E-M’s] rotations and tendencies on Friday night and then Saturday morning and just knowing who they’re trying to set in each rotation helped us a lot,” Fruin said. “I thought our middles did a great job of always knowing who’s in the front row and always talking to one another so we never did get pulled on anybody. It’s still not easy, but we wanted to stay disciplined up at the net.”

The performance from the Vikings’ back row was just as strong. Minneota recorded 90 digs as a team on the afternoon, with three players (Abby Hennen, Morgan Hennen and Natalee Rolbiecki) tallying at least 18 apiece.

Waterville-Elysian-Morristown coach Crystal Lamont said they tried to make adjustments on the attack as the match went on, but they struggled to find open spots on the floor to get a point.

“We had some balls that we hit hard that would have scored against any other team that we played and then it seemed like their back row player just read the ball really well and got in position to make the dig,” Lamont said. “We always teach our hitters to keep adjusting and look for different shots, but we had a hard time finding any shot that was going to drop against them.”

As a former back row player, Abby Hennen added it’s frustrating when someone is able to dig up your attack, so they just tried to create the same feeling for W-E-M and felt they were scrappy all match.

“If a hitter swings hard and someone on the other team gets it up, that’s one of the most frustrating things,” Abby said. “That’s what you want to try and do to the other team and I think everybody was really scrappy and kept balls up that we didn’t think that we were going to get and we gave a lot of effort. That’s one thing that our team does a really good job of and it definitely paid off.”

When a team is on the biggest stage of its sport, it takes a lot of composure and some experience in order to see success. Playing in their third state championship match in as many years, Abby Hennen said they were able to rely on last year’s championship run to help calm the nerves of their group and knows this year’s group can take a lot of good things away heading into next year.

“We’ve had a lot of girls who played this year play last year and it just helps when you look to some of the people that have been on the big stage before,” Abby said. “We just tried to help out the younger kids and by match three of playing on these courts, I think they kind of adapted to the environment and even next year it’ll be better.”