STATE BOUND!!

For the duration of the season, K-M volleyball coach Adam VanOort has tried to tell his team that there are highs and lows throughout the course of the year and even those highs and lows can take place during the course of a single match. In addition, he believed that the team that plays closest to a consistent level could do great things and make a run when the playoffs hit the calendar.
The KoMets were able to heed VanOort’s advice last week as they secured the Section 1AA championship, qualifying for the Minnesota Class AA State Volleyball Tournament, which begins on Thursday night.
“We’ve been slowly improving all season and we really had a good, full week of practice leading up to the [subsection championship],” VanOort explained. “The girls just continued to be deliberate in incremental improvements and we had everybody on the team contributing on the court, on the bench or in practice to make the team better.”
“We all wanted it really bad,” K-M senior captain Jesse Riker admitted. “We all come into the gym with a goal and Adam is really strict, in a good way, about having a good focus when we come into the gym and I think we’ve done a great job of doing that all year.”
The fruits of the KoMets’ labor first showed up last Thursday night when they battled Stewartville for the 1AA West Championship. Things got off to a rocky start in the first set when K-M fell behind 12-6, but were able to make a run to take the lead at 23-22 and finish for a 25-23 win to take a 1-0 lead in the match.
From there, the Tigers started to assert themselves. After opening the second set on a 7-1 run, Stewartville would cruise to a 25-13 victory before falling 25-16 in the third set to put their backs against the wall. Despite the hole, VanOort still believed in his team enough that they could make a comeback.
“I told them that if they could get to the fifth set, they were going to win the match,” VanOort revealed. “We had been in a couple of five-set matches over the course of the year and Stewartville hadn’t. They had some young players too, so we played calm and aggressive down the stretch and they didn’t.”
The fourth set would be a back and forth battle with the Tigers taking a 14-11 advantage before the KoMets would make a run. With an 18-16 lead, the two teams would continue to battle before ultimately claiming a 25-23 victory to extend the match to a fifth set.
In the rubber set, the KoMets played some of their best volleyball of the year. With great teamwork and competitiveness, K-M was able to take an early advantage in the fifth set and cruise to a 15-7 victory to win the match and secure the subsection championship.
“I think it’s our repetition,” K-M senior captain Madie Bi