Photo by Jake McNeill Minneota defensive specialist Autumn Anderson lays out for a dig during a prep girls volleyball match against Canby onn Tuesday in Minneota. The Vikings defeated the Lancers in straight sets.

MINNEOTA — In last year’s Section 3A North championship match, the Canby volleyball team had the Minneota Vikings on the brink of defeat after claiming the first two sets. Yet, the Vikings rallied to win each of the next three sets and steal the match. When the No. 5 Vikings hosted the No. 6 Lancers for a rematch on Tuesday, however, Minneota didn’t leave room for suspense as they claimed a 25-15, 25-11, 25-18 victory.

“We’ve struggled a lot with confidence this year just because we’re a younger team, but this is definitely going to boost us in the right direction,” Minneota sophomore setter Libby Sussner said. “Hopefully it helps us throughout the whole season.”

Minneota had been tasked with a tough schedule over the last two weeks. In their six matches since Sept. 21, they faced No. 1 Russell-Tyler-Ruthton, No. 9 Kittson County Central, No. 7 MACCRAY and now No. 6 Canby. With two losses to RTR and MACCRAY, as well as a four-match losing streak against Class 4A’s No. 1 Champlin Park, Bloomington Jefferson, Burnsville and Class 1A No. 2 Mayer Lutheran, this Vikings team has been tested this year.

“Canby’s a great team. I know that they were out one of their outside [hitters] tonight, but they’re a great team and any time you can compete with anybody like that, it hopefully gives our kids just a little bit more confidence. But they also need to know that you’re not on top of the mountain,” Minneota head coach Hayley Fruin said. “You need to keep climbing. We’ve got to continue to get better each and every day. Tonight was fun to win against a great team, but we need to go in tomorrow and get ready for Thursday when we’ve got another tough one.”

The first half of the first set was about as competitive as a game can be. Minneota scored each of the first two points but struggled to pull away. Up until the match was tied at 12-12, the Vikings led by more than 2 points just once, 10-7, and were tied three times. 

“It takes a minute to get into the groove of things,” Fruin said of her team’s early first-set performance. “We’ve got two middles out there that haven’t played in years past, so I think they were just getting the feel of the game, feel of the atmosphere… and then I think they were finally starting to settle in and get good touches. Before that, maybe it’s just the hype. They’re excited, so they’re floating to get there, but it just took a little bit and then we finally got some good, quality touches.”

Leah Coequyt led an effective Minneota front row with three blocks in the match while Jaylyn Coequyt added another two. Minneota’s Natalie Ratajczak and Sarah Gruenes each also had a block in the match, as did Canby’s Brynn Kockelman and Karli Weber. 

Karlie Wollum had the hot hand early with four kills in Canby’s first 12 points. Yet, the Vikings started to pull away. Three unanswered points gave the Vikings a 15-12 lead, prompting the Lancers’ first timeout. Canby kept pace for a few points but called its second trailing 17-14. 

From there, Minneota scored 8 of the final 9 points in the 25-15 win, capped off by Sussner’s third service ace of the set. 

“I trust my team in that they’ll defend the ball that I put over the net, and that gives me the confidence to serve as tough as I can and hopefully get the ace,” Sussner said of her early success from the service line.

As a team, Minneota excelled from the service line with three aces from Sussner, two from Rolbiecki and another three players with at least one. Canby got an ace from Grace Hansen but struggled on its serve receive, committing nine errors on 68 attempts.

“We do battle, and we continually battle in practice, but it just seemed tonight that if you don’t service receive well, it’s not going to be very pretty,” Wright said. “That’s what it looked like to the crowd, but kudos to our crowd. I’m proud of our town that came out to support us today.”

Eden Meagher led the Minneota hitters with 10 kills in the match while Elivia Faris and Jaylyn Coequyt each contributed another six and Sarah Gruenes tallied five. 

The Vikings’ well-distributed attack can largely be attributed to the play of its setters, senior captain Nevaeh Hennen and Sussner. Hennen notched 20 set assists in the match while Sussner added another 10. Fruin emphasized that passing, serving and spreading the ball around is a key part of the Vikings’ identity as a team and a key part of their success on the day.

Canby scored the first point of the second game but Minneota scored three unanswered points to take the lead. Still, the Lancers wouldn’t die. They forced a series of Minneota errors to take their first lead of the match, 7-6, forcing the Vikings to call a timeout. 

Coming out of the huddle, Minneota looked rejuvenated. After trailing 8-7, the Vikings scored four unanswered points to get right back on top. 

The Lancers never got back into the game from there. The Vikings went on an 11-1 run to increase their lead to 20-9. Minneota then easily captured the 25-11 win behind four kills from Meagher and three from Faris in the set. 

Minneota controlled the early third set until Canby rallied to get back within a point, 11-10. Just when it seemed like the Lancers were ready to put it together, Minneota rattled off 6 unanswered points to increase the lead to 17-10 and force a Canby timeout. 

Once again, Minneota’s mid-set momentum carried the Vikings to victory. The Lancers kept pace from there but couldn’t cut into the deficit as Minneota pulled out a 25-18 clincher.

“We came in knowing it was going to be a battle and I thought Minneota played very well and consistent. Unfortunately, we made too many unforced errors,” Wright said. “In the game of volleyball, whoever makes more errors is going to lose the match and that’s what happened tonight.”

Wollum again caught fire in the third set with seven kills, bringing her total to 13 on the night. Emily Nelson was second on the team with five kills while Amya Verhelst and Weber each added another three.

“You try your best to kind of slow down Wollum, slow down Nelson as much as you can. Offensively, those are two players that are going to get their kills, they’re going to have some amazing swings up there, and we’re just hoping that we could get some good touches and defend everybody else,” Fruin said. “You really do need to respect all of [Canby’s] offensive kids, but I thought we defended really, really well tonight and just didn’t let balls drop.”

Kockelman and Nelson each finished with 13 set assists in the match.

Madison Minnehan led the Vikings’ back row with 12 digs while Hennen and Rolbiecki each tallied another nine. Sussner also recorded seven digs in the match.

For Canby, libero Aliyah Rangaard led the team with 17 digs while Wollum, Nelson and Kockelman tallied nine, eight and seven respectively. 

Minneota improves to 13-6 with the win and will remain on its home court when it hosts Lakeview (6-8) on Thursday at 7:15 p.m. The Vikings swept the Lakers 3-0 when the teams last met in October of 2023.

Canby’s three-match win streak comes to an end with the loss, dropping the Lancers to 14-5 on the season. They’ll look to get another streak started when they go on the road to face Yellow Medicine East (3-11) on Thursday at 7;15 p.m.

“We’ll learn from this. Tomorrow’s a new day and we’re ready to battle on,” Wright said. “We’ll see Minneota again in sections and we will be prepared. There will be another battle the R/A [Southwest Minnesota State University’s R/A Facility].”