Photos by Samantha Davis: The Minneota volleyball team cheers on Eden Meagher (6) after hitting two straight kills in the first set against MACCRAY Tuesday evening. The No. 1 Vikings swept the fifth-ranked Wolverines. Below: The Minneota student section cheers on Abby Rolbiecki, who wears jersey No. 8, as she sets up to serve Tuesday night against MACCRAY. She surpassed 1,000 career digs over the weekend. Below: Abby Rolbiecki makes a dig during the second set against MACCRAY Tuesday evening.

MINNEOTA — The top-ranked Minneota volleyball team was firing on all cylinders in front of a packed home crowd as it cruised to a 3-0 sweep in a Class A top-5 battle against No. 5 MACCRAY Tuesday night, clinching its 11th straight win. Eden Meagher’s 16 kills, and the Vikings’ 33 digs and 13 service aces shined in set wins of 25-15, 25-14 and 25-10.

“We knew what we were going to be up against. They [MACCRAY] obviously got Brielle Janssen and Emma Thein who are amazing hitters for them. We knew that needed to be our focus,” Minneota head coach Kaley Buysse said. “The goal was to shut them down a little bit, keep them out of system a little bit, and just make sure we’re getting touches when we can up there to help ourselves out offensively.”

After the first set, the team and crowd cheered on Abby Rolbiecki as the senior libero was recognized for surpassing 1,000 career digs over the weekend. After hugging her teammates and family in the stands, she embraced former Minneota head coach Hayley Fruin, who was in attendance.

“She’s [Rolbiecki] earned it … Just getting to coach her this year is, she’s one of those athletes that’s easy to coach, because she comes in and she wants to work hard. She wants to get better every single day,” Buysse said. [She’s] really staying disciplined and staying where she needs to be, being a leader on the court and communicating, all those aspects … If we didn’t have the defense that we have, we wouldn’t be able to do the offense that we have.”

Meagher’s consistent attacking challenged MACCRAY early in the first set and continued through the night, while Jaylyn Coequyt and Sarah Gruenes got involved and the Vikings’ defense was anchored with the help of Rolbiecki and Autum Anderson.

Coequyt and Gruenes finished with 10 and six kills respectively, while Rolbiecki finished with a team-high 10 digs. Anderson followed with eight, while Meagher and Madison Minnehan each had five apiece.

Minneota, who’s been ranked No. 1 in the Minnesota Volleyball Coaches Association Class A polls since preseason, entered the night on a 10-game winning streak. On the other hand, MACCRAY has been climbing the polls and began the season winning its first 10 consecutive matches.

The crowd was loud from the first serve, and helped carry the Vikings’ momentum through all three sets.

“It’s homecoming week here. We had our little girls that participated in our camp earlier in the season, they got to do their run out and all get introduced … Then our coronation did their walk through. It was awesome,” Buysse said of the home crowd. “This is what we live for. This is what the girls deserve … We’re lucky that we can come and play in this environment, and have this much support.”

The match started point for point, before Minneota broke ahead with an 8-5 lead after a pair of Meagher kills and a serving ace from Anderson.

Continuing on a run, the Wolverines called a timeout when facing a 14-7 deficit after Meagher found an open pocket in the back right corner of the court.

Meagher kept her stride going with two more kills out the timeout, and finished the first set with seven.

“Eden did awesome tonight. She was on. She did a really good job for us, and honestly was finding holes all over wherever she was,” Buysse said. “She was performing for us in the back row when we needed her to, which is always a good option for us to be able to use her offensively back there as well as in the front row. She’s just such a smart player.”

The Vikings wrapped up the first set quickly behind an ace from Rolbiecki, and kills from Coequyt and Gruenes.

The second set began with a 5-5 tie, and Minneota faced a 7-5 deficit when Buysse called a timeout to regroup her team.

Minneota came out firing after the reset with three straight points to take back the lead and never looked back off two MACCRAY errors and an ace from Anderson.

Meagher’s 10th kill of the night put the Vikings up 13-11, with Anderson and Rolbiecki continuously backing up the hitters to save any attacks from MACCRAY’s end.

“I was really impressed with them [defensively] tonight. I felt like sometimes we often will kind of get stuck … We’re not moving, we’re not anticipating some of those balls,” Buysse said. “But, they did a really good job tonight of really pushing and anticipating some of those, and not letting anything hit the ground. It was a team effort all the way across.”

Minnehan had a strong trio of service aces toward the end of the set, including the final two points to put Minneota up 2-0 on the night behind more kills from Gruenes, Natalie Ratajczak and Meagher.

Minnehan led the Vikings with four aces on the night, while Meagher had another three. Anderson, Gurenes and Rolbiecki each had two.

The Vikings cruised through the final set, jumping to a 6-1 lead while the Wolverines continued to struggle to find answers to Minneota’s all-around team efforts.

A Coequyt kill, MACCRAY error and ace from Meagher extended Minneota’s lead to 10-1, along with a strong blocking effort at the front of the net.

Two kills from Coequyt, one more from Meagher and one from Leah Coequyt secured Minneota’s sweep and ended the night.

Leah Coequyt also finished with a team-high five blocks, while Libby Sussner and Sophie Gillund had 23 and 14 set assists, respectively.

“We just [went] one point at a time. Then eventually, at the very end of that third set, it was, ‘We need to finish.’ We’re not going to let off, and making sure that we’re not settling,” Buysse said of the team’s ability to control the entire match. “Just continuing to play at our level, play our game and just continue to execute on the things that we went in knowing we needed to do.”

The Vikings are staying hot at the right time now entering the second half of the regular season.

Minneota is coming off a strong showing at the Class A Showcase Tournament over the weekend, finishing first place after a series of ranked wins over No. 8 Ada-Borup-West, No. 6 Canby and notably over No. 2 Mayer Lutheran in a rematch of the 2024 Class A State Championship, where the Crusaders defeated the Vikings.

“That’s the big thing. It’s just making sure that we don’t settle, and just get complacent in where we’re at … On Friday at the Class A Showcase, we started out incredibly slow. We were making lots of errors across the board, and just really needed to clean things up,” Buysse said. “But, by Saturday afternoon, it was fun. It was really rewarding to see the girls come together and just see them all execute on their part of the game and figure it out.”

The Vikings last loss was to No. 4 Russell-Tyler-Ruthton at the Southwest Challenge Tournament in Marshall on Sept. 6.

Minneota (16-2, 5-0) will next hit the road to take on Ortonville on Thursday with a 7 p.m. first serve.