It has been a great season for the young Viking volleyball team. They earned a season best record—20-4— and earned a second place finish in Section 7A. The Vikings were a powerhouse on home court this season. Here, Bekah Laky serves as Ashley Deschampe (No. 5) and Theresa Morrin (No. 3) get ready for the return.
After a rousing come-frombehind victory in the Section 7A Semifinals against Chisholm, the Cook County Vikings fell to Cherry in the Nov. 6 Section Championship game.
Things didn’t start out well for the Vikings, who fell behind very quickly 1-4 to the Chisholm Bluestreaks in game one of the Semifinal match. Five straight bad passes led to the deficit before nerves settled down and allowed the Vikings to begin playing decent ball. The passing was still not sharp though, and Chisholm built a seven-point lead at 15-22. Chelsey Sorenson went on a nice serving run, aided by Ali Iverson’s play at the net to bring the Vikings back but it was too little too late as the Vikes succumbed to a 20-25 defeat.
Losing the first game could have sent the Vikings into a tailspin but the experienced girls came out strong in the second game. Three Vikes—Brea Boomer, Ashley Deschampe, and
Bekah Laky—
were playing in their
fourth Section Semifinal between basketball and volleyball, while most of the other girls had played in at least one other game. One of those girls was Theresa Morrin, who came out hot and strung together a sevenpoint serving streak to give the Vikes a big advantage. Theback row turned it around and picked up their play with great passing and Deschampe finished many plays at the net with some big hits. Kristina Rude served for five points before Morrin stepped to the line for the last five points of the game to give the Vikings a big 25-13 win.
The all-decisive swing game with a 1-1 tie started out in the Vikings favor, as “Dish” served two aces as part of a 5-0 start. The Vikings built the lead up to 12-8, but there was a drop in intensity and the Streaks brought the score to within one at 12-11. The Vikings built up their lead to 16-12 when Boomer completely took over the game. Much like you expect a leader to do, she asserted herself as the best player on the court, accounting for six of the last nine points. Boomer had four kills and two huge ace blocks that stretched out the Vikings’ lead and brought the gym to a raucous roar before Deschampe put the proverbial nail in the coffin with a driving spike of her own. The 25-19 win gave the Vikings a 2-1 lead and the momentum heading into the fourth game.
With the gym rocking, both sides came out and put on a show with some exciting scoring plays. Chisholm gained the advantage when the Viking passers struggled to feed the ball to the setters but Dish came up big with a kill to stop the bleeding at 9-13.
After another mini-run by the Bluestreaks, Morrin plugged the hole in a quickly sinking ship to keep the Vikes in the game at 12-18. The young Vikings then got the ship sailing with another kill, this one a perfectly placed tip, to bring the Vikings within two 17-19. After a Boomer ace serve to tie the game at 20, Iverson had a huge ace block and Dish followed with a kill. Since it worked so well, Iverson and Dish followed it up with another block-and kill combo to give the Vikes a 25-21 win. The win sent the Vikings to the Section Championship game for the first time in school history and sent Chisholm streaking home blue with a season ending defeat.
The Vikings were led in the match by the setting combo of Rude and Laky, with 20 and 18 assists apiece. They were able to spread the wealth between the two net leaders in Deschampe (14K) and Boomer (12K), as well as feeding a tandem of young talent that came to play in Iverson (8K) and Morrin (7K). It was an all around great effort by the Vikings, who showed a lot of heart and mental toughness in the win.
Coming off of what this lowly reporter would call their best game of the year, the Vikings were riding high coming into the Championship game against the 21-2 Cherry Tigers. Romano Gymnasium at UMD was packed for the Saturday showdown for the Section 7A Championship.
Dish got things rolling in game one with an ace that clanked off a Cherry player into the crowd. The game remained tight, eventually being tied at 11 before the Tigers took advantage of three big errors that put the Vikings in an 11-16 hole. Poor passing led to free balls being sent over to the Tigers where they converted with solid setting and nice hits to eventually put away the Vikes 16-25.
The Vikings knew that the second game would be crucial, as Cherry was a solid opponent that would not beat themselves and digging out of too big of a hole would be very difficult. Boomer got things going for the Vikes early, hammering a kill to take a quick 2-1 lead. A Laky ace serve brought the score to 4-4 before more mistakes led to a Cherry run. Bad passing was the theme of the night, as the Vikings couldn’t get any attack going while the Tigers, on the wings of some great setting by Molly Parenteau (38SA), were able to assault the ball all night. A huge run stretched the deficit from 7-12 to 10-20 in a matter of what seemed like seconds. The next four points Cherry scored were all ace serves and all Viking misplays as the Tigers ran away with an 11-25 win.
With all air deflated from the gym the Vikings came back and showed how they got this far with better play in game three. Much better passing and stronger play at the net put the Vikings right in the thick of things, going mano a mano with the Tigers to the 15-point mark. A hitting error gave Cherry a lead, one they would not relinquish as they slowly pulled away from the Vikes. Cook County pulled close at 20-22, but the Tigers fed 6’2” senior hitter Morgan Hanson (20K) three straight times to end the Vikings season and send Cherry to the state tournament.
The night was definitely disappointing for the Vikings, who didn’t play with the same aggressiveness and toughness that they played with all season. The loss means the season ends with a 20-4 record and second place finish in Section 7A, both season bests in Cook County history.
Although the season didn’t end the way the Vikings had envisioned, Coach Pam Taylor was able to see things positively. “When you look at the talent we lost last year to graduation, I knew it was going to be very difficult to get to where we finished.”
She added, “The girls told me at the beginning of the year that they would be playing in the Section Championship game. I don’t know if I believed that then, but somewhere along the line, they convinced me that we would be here and we got here. What these girls have accomplished is amazing; I am proud and I love each and every one of them.”
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