Kasson-Mantorville Volleyball Looks Focused in State Opener
The top seed and #1 rated Class 2A Kasson-Mantorville had no trouble defeating a very good St. Cloud Cathedral team today. Scores were 25-11. 25-18, 25-16. Senior Payton Suess and sister sophomore Mya Suess combined for 26 kills in the three set match and had very impressive attack percentages.
6'0 Payton collected 19 kills and hit .389 and 6'0 Mya had no hitting errors with 7 kills and a .636 hitting percentage. The KoMets had a team attack percentage of .298 which is very good. I always compare a volleyball team hitting percentage to a team batting average in baseball. Not exactly the same but I think a good comparison. The Crusaders hit .030 for the match. They had 26 total kills compared to 40 for Kasson-Mantorville.
St. Cloud Cathedral has a very good volleyball team but could never really get going because of the termination abilities of the Suess sisters. The KoMets also collected 9 blocks compared to 2 for the Crusaders. It all starts with passing and senior libero 5'4 Bailey Berge made on target passes to freshman setter 5'7 Maddie Converse so she could execute 34 assists in the match.
Berge finished with 14 digs. Payton Suess was a dig away from a double double with 9 digs to go along with her 19 kills. Wake Forest will love having the versatile athlete on their court next year.
5'8 senior outside hitter Caroline Braun was efficient also with a .267 attack percentage and 6 kills . Braun collected 10 kills in the 65 minute match. Junior 5'10 Emilee Terry added 6 kills, hitting .136 with two service aces, 5 digs and 4 block assists.
It was just the third loss of the season for the Crusaders who were in the others receiving votes category of the Class 2A final Minnesota Volleyball Coaches Association poll.
Kasson-Mantorville (31-2) will face #4 seed and #5 rated North Branch in the semifinals Friday at 5:00 p.m. The Vikings had a hard fought 5 set win over Watertown-Mayer and had to come back down 2-0 to win. The #10 ranked Watertown-Mayer Royals won the first two sets 27-25, 25-23 before North Branch reeled off 25-20, 26-24 and 15-8 wins.
The Vikings are now 27-4 with their losses to Forest Lake and St. Michael-Albertville during dual competition and Rochester Century and St. Louis Park in tournament action.
The KoMets only losses have been to Class A top rated Minneota and Class 3A power Champlin Park in an early September tournament. Since that time Kasson-Mantorville has 25 consecutive wins.
On the other side of the Class 2A bracket things went according to seed also with #2 seed and #3 ranked Concordia Academy-Roseville defeating #6 rated Belle Plaine 25-16, 25-20, 20-25, 26-24. The #4 rated and #3 seed Marshall Tigers dispatched Park Rapids Area in four sets also 25-19, 25-17, 25-27, 25-21.