Independent file photo The Russell-Tyler-Ruthton volleyball team poses with its state championship trophy while looking out at the crowd at the Xcel Energy Center after their win over Mayer Lutheran in the Class A finals.

This season was a year of firsts for the Russell-Tyler-Ruthton volleyball team. Not only did they get their first section championship win to secure their first state tournament appearance, they also won their first state tournament match and — most importantly — their first state championship. Still, their success story didn’t happen overnight.

The Knights had been a quality team over the last several seasons but it was in 2022 that they first made a leap from a good team to a state contender. A year after going 18-10 and falling to Tracy-Milroy-Balaton in the state quarterfinals, the Knights rocketed up the standings to put together a 29-4 record, falling just one set shy of the state tournament.

“Our seniors were just really good leaders. They talked to us and just made us feel like we belong there playing volleyball. We were all a special part of the team, we all had an important role, and we all communicated,” Avery Schreurs, a sophomore at the time, said of the team’s 2022 jump forward. “We always did a lot of team bonding. That just pulled our team together and I think that’s what made us a better team than we had always been before.”

After having beaten Minneota in a best-of-3 match in the Class A showcase earlier in the season and dropping a five-set match against the Vikings toward the end of the regular season, the Knights and Vikings met for the trilogy in the section championship. The Knights pulled off a gutsy 26-24 win in the fourth set to force a fifth-set tiebreaker but Minneota ran away with a 15-16 win to dash RTR’s hopes.

“We were extremely disappointed in ourselves that we were even more motivated to come out higher than we did last year. Last year’s loss, I think, we got a lot more motivation to push harder and become more mentally strong knowing that we have to push through hard times,” outside hitter Abby Carr said. “When we’re up, we have to make sure that we finish the game… We just learned so much from that loss against Minneota and what not to do again.”

It took the team some time to mentally bounce back from the season-ending loss but once they came back, they came back ready to go. Middle blocker Ally Nelson said that the loss to Minneota was something that was in the team’s all throughout summer practices because they felt they were a championship-caliber team in 2022 and didn’t want to finish their high school careers on that same note of heartbreak. Head coach Daynica Brown passed out a packet when the group first started meeting in the preseason titled “Refuse to Lose.” She said that the importance of the message was to never get outworked or underperform on the court.

“Did they ever say it at the beginning of the year? No, even my husband joked with me, ‘I’m not sure that this is the team that should have been used on,’ and I’m like, ‘Yes it is,'” Brown said. “As the playoffs rolled around, that’s what they were chanting in the huddle. That’s what they were breaking it down in the huddle saying. Even at the state tournament, if anybody could hear it, that was their thing.”

From the jump, the team knew that it had high expectations for this season. While they lost key players such as Ella Hesse and Lexi Schreurs from the previous year, they returned a large group of veterans. Carr, Ally Nelson, Tatum Hess, Gabi Borresen and Camry Swanson all returned as seniors while Avery Schreurs was returning as a junior. As a result, there wasn’t much room for error for the group full of players on their last shot at a state title.

“We’ve all been on the team for so many years and been so experienced, we’ve all witnessed losses and wins and because of that, we all came very mentally strong saying, ‘This is our year. We’re going to win the championship this year,'” Carr said. 

When the team met to establish its goals in the preseason. Individual goals, such as getting Borresen to 1,000 assists in a season, getting Hess to 1,000 career digs and getting Carr to 1,000 career kills, were all a part of the process. Still, the first thing on everyone’s mind was to get to a state championship.

The primary goal didn’t come without sacrifice. Hess had been a libero during her junior year but with a new gap at outside hitter, Brown needed someone to step up. Standing at just 5 feet, 5 inches tall, Hess didn’t have the height of a typical hitter. While she did end up finishing the season with 1,018 digs, the positional switch made it much more of a question mark whether she’d hit the milestone. Still, she was ready to do whatever she needed to in order to help her team win. 

“My first thought was like, ‘What the heck? I don’t know if that would work just considering I am short,'” Hess said of her initial thoughts when Brown asked her to make the switch. “At first, I was kind of taken aback. Then I was like, you know what, that’s what the team needs, so I’m going to do whatever the team needs for us to be at our best ability overall… I was going to miss my libero position because I love passing and that’s what I’ve always known, but I knew if that’s what the team needed, then I would step up, be a leader and do that.'”

Brown said she made the switch because, while small in stature, Hess has a very strong swing. Her size meant she’d have to put in extra summer work to improve on her block, but she had the jumping abilities to make it happen.

“She really has to come in hard and fast on her hits. People were actually calling her rocket because she was coming in so fast and swinging so hard,” Brown said. 

In Hess’ place, Schreurs stepped up into the libero role and didn’t miss a beat. She finished the year with 503 digs to lead the team while Hess added another 349. 

“Defensively, you’ve got a good almost three-quarters of the court completely covered by two girls that are top-notch liberos,” Brown said. “They both have that top-notch capability on defense and so that was kind of how that all came about. I just feel like they both embraced it really well.”

Coming out of the gates with high expectations, the Knights were battle-tested with several of the top teams in the state in just their first eight matches. After sweeping Lakeview in their season-opener, they fell 3-1 against eventual state-runner-up Mayer Lutheran in four sets and took down sixth-ranked Canby in four sets. Not yet done with the gauntlet, they also fell against Class 4A No. 3 Champlin Park and the now three-time reigning Class 3A champion Marshall Tigers. While on-court victories are better than moral victories, the 5-3 start after playing such strong competition helped to build character for this Knights team.

“It prepared us mentally and physically. You can’t give up on any plays because you never know what’s going to happen or what the call is going to be. Playing those bigger schools and even playing Minneota the three times that we played prepared us for the section championship and made us better,” Schreurs said. 

While the Knights performed well against all of their early opponents, the one thing that they did struggle with was a second-set slump. Oftentimes the team would run away with the first set of a match and then, with their confidence perhaps overflowing, would lose focus in the second set. Still, the Knights corrected that issue quickly, a change Carr attributed to on-court communication and the power of positive thinking, and proceeded to rattle off nine consecutive wins. The streak ended with a 2-0 loss to Minneota in the Class A Showcase but, unphased, they proceeded to pick up a 2-1 payback win over Mayer Lutheran in the same tournament. 

“I feel like we always played together as one big family. We never got down on each other and we just always stuck together,” freshman defensive specialist Laken Baartman said when asked about how the team was able to grow out of those early slumps over the course of the season.

From there, the Knights won another 10 consecutive matches against in-state opponents. Once again, however, the streak was broken up by a five-set loss to Minneota in the teams’ regular-season finale. Just like in last year’s section championship, the Knights battled back in the fourth set to force a fifth-set tiebreaker. Just like last year’s section championship, the Vikings seized all momentum early in the tiebreaker for a 15-7 win. 

Still, despite once again facing disappointment after their fourth consecutive loss against the Vikings, the Knights didn’t have much time to hang their heads. Heading right into the section tournament after earning the top seed in the Section 3A South bracket and a first-round bye, the Knights took on TMB in the first round. The Panthers had been dominant in the past and stymied RTR before, but not this time as the Knights rolled to a sweep.

The Knights seemed to have found their rhythm again until Adrian/Ellsworth nearly upset the top seed in the second round. The Knights had won the first two sets before falling back into another slump and allowing the Dragons to win two in a row to force a tiebreaker. Brown said that the match wasn’t the team’s best but that they were still happy to move on after they won the fifth set to clinch. She also said that she felt it pushed her seniors more because it forced them to realize that their season could end in any given match.

The Knights’ main struggle in the match was efficient hitting. Still, a pair of Knights had career nights. Borresen set a season-high in assists with 62 while Carr finished the match with a season-best 32 kills to carry the hitting workload. Hess also had 29 digs in the match.

“I think I get less down on myself because playing in Southwest JOs, I’ve been in more clutch situations and been in more really tight matches, so I think I know how to deal with those struggles more,” Carr said when asked about being able to pick up the offensive reigns on nights that the team is struggling to find its rhythm, adding that she’s someone that wants the ball in those situations. 

From there, the Knights found their sense of urgency, sweeping their way through the No. 2-seeded Heron Lake-Okabena/Fulda Coyotes to set up a rematch against Minneota in the section championship.

After dropping the first set 25-15, the Knights took a pyrrhic victory in the second; they won 25-23 to even the match but lost Hess to an ankle injury. Hess had been on a hot streak the previous two matches, notching 29 digs against Adrian/Ellsworth and another 18 against HLOF to lead the team in both matches. Still, Schreurs was ready for the challenge.

“I was a little nervous at first because she’s always been back there with me. Even last year when she was a libero, I was still back there with her and I always knew if I had a bad pass, she was going to be there to make it better or even Gabi was there to make it better too,” Schreurs said. 

Without her backrow teammate, however, Schreurs put on a defensive masterclass and finished the match with an incredibly clutch 44 digs. She also said that Sara Thooft did a great job when Thooft was unexpectedly thrust into the responsibility. 

To Hess’ credit, she also did all she could from the bench. Even on a bad ankle, she leaped up after every point to cheer on her team. 

“I was scared because I was like, there’s no way that I’m a senior and this is happening now. I was scared,” Hess said. “I would’ve been selfless even if I couldn’t have played [on a sprained ankle at the state tournament] and I would have cheered on my teammates no matter what, but I wanted to be out there when we won that state title and I wanted to be out there every step of the way after that.”

The Knights’ defensive masterclass wasn’t limited to their back row. The Vikings are a tall team with a pair of front-row players listed at 5-foot-11 and another three listed at 5-8. They don’t get shots blocked often. That made it even more of a surprise when the Knights put on their biggest blocking game of the season. Swanson led the way with nine blocks while Dilyn Werkman added another six. Additionally, Nelson and Thooft contributed five and four respectively.

“We were all kind of ready. We wanted revenge on them for a long time, so we all just wanted to play our best,” Swanson said, saying that the group watched plenty of film so they’d know where to position themselves against the Minneota hitters. “We wanted to go out there and beat them. We were all pretty focused.”

RTR led by as many as 8 points in the fourth set before the Vikings made a run to capture the frame 25-22. When Minneota started the deciding fifth set with 4 unanswered points, it seemed to signal a sense of deja vu for those who had seen the teams’ last several matches. Still, this time was different. RTR locked in and made the comeback in an extended fifth set to capture a 17-15 win. Nelson had a kill to set up match point and, on the following point, Carr made an incredible dig over her back shoulder to set up the match-winning point.

“After we beat Minneota, our mindset was that we were going to win. We were going to win the state championship like we said all year,” Nelson said. 

Brown attributed the team’s ability to make the jump to the next level this season in part to their confidence. While the team had a tendency to doubt their abilities after allowing an opponent to get back into a game, Brown said, this year’s group was different.

“These girls never doubted their playing ability. Even in the cities, they were on a mission,” Brown said. “Every team was just a roadblock in their ultimate goal and they needed to go through it and figure out how to go through it… They put it out there and they weren’t going to leave without that trophy.”

For the first time in program history, the Knights were headed to the state tournament. They headed up to the cities early in the week to get situated ahead of their match on Thursday morning. For some on the team, the bright lights of the Xcel Center and the expectations brought pressure. For others, they didn’t matter at all.

“This might sound bad to say, but it just kind of felt like a normal game, especially the first two,” Hess said of her first time stepping on the state tournament court, though she added that the fans and the environment of the state championship match against Mayer Lutheran felt like a whole new game.

Hess stuck to primarily back row with her ankle injury limiting her jumping ability but continued to play through the pain, notching 13 digs in the Knights’ quarterfinal sweep of PRB and another 14 in a four-set win over New Life Academy. Schreurs continued to excel in the back row with 18 digs in the first match and 27 in the second, leading the Knights to the finals.

Even ahead of the championship match, the team had fun on their trip. While they were locked in and focused on studying game film, they could only do that so many hours a day. Players killed downtime with everything from playing Queens of the Court at practice, going shopping, and a trip to Dave and Busters. Borresen recalled playing a game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos at Dave and Busters. Still, the thing the team was most hungry for was the state title that they were on the brink of.

When they headed into the matchup against Mayer Lutheran, they weren’t just playing one of the state’s best teams; they were playing a team that had come so close just a year earlier, falling short in the finals against Minneota. 

The Knights came out strong with a first set win but Mayer Lutheran appeared to have all momentum in the second, holding an 18-11 lead before the Knights snapped the streak. Hess, Carr and Nelson came up with key kills to eventually tie the match at 24-24. The teams continued to battle back and forth before a Mayer Lutheran error and a kill by Werkman capped off the Knights’ epic comeback. Brown described the win as possibly the team’s biggest of the year.

“I actually felt confident before we even played. I felt confident the whole time we were up there. I don’t know if it’s just because our section is so tough… or if it was just the girls, the way they practiced because we had some walkthroughs there,” Brown said. “It was probably a combo, but we had walkthroughs out there and the girls, just the way they practiced like champions, they were ready. They were ready and they weren’t going to be satisfied without the title. Having that hunger, they’re going to have that extra little overdrive, that pedal to the metal.”

Mayer Lutheran was able to steal a win in the third set but the Knights continued to power through for a 25-22 win, capped off by a kill from Swanson. The bench stormed onto the court, dogpiling on top of Swanson, Borresen, Carr, Hess, Schreurs and Werkman. Schreurs, Carr and Nelson were all named to the All-Tournament team after the match before the group was presented with their medals and hoisted a trophy in front of a raucous crowd of navy blue that filled the stands.

When the team hopped on their bus back to RTR for their welcome home event, the girls took the first 20 minutes or so of the bus ride to savor the moment. They talked about the match, relived the highlights and watched clips that their friends and family sent them, Baartman said. From there, they busted out the Bluetooth speakers to celebrate. Carr recalled the girls standing on the seats of the bus and having a dance party to DJ Khaled’s “All I Do is Win.”

While they’re graduating most of their key contributors, this Knights team won’t be soon forgotten. Despite being a three-hour drive from the Xcel Center, the Knights still had one of the largest and loudest fan bases of the state tournament. The community valued this team just as much as the team valued their support. Now, with Schreurs, Baartman and Werkman at the helm of Brown’s team, the Knights will look to keep charging forward.