This season for the Bomber volleyball team has been one for the record books. This year is the second time that the team has ever gone to state in program history. Last year was their first year, but when they got there, their first game ended in a disappointing loss. 

But this year was different. This year, in the Bomber’s first game they swept the Pipestone Arrows 3-0 for an exciting victory. The very next day, the Bombers were back at it again and swept the Annandale Cardinals. The victory over Annandale sent the Bombers straight to the championship match against the Pequot Lakes Patriots. Again, the Bombers headed to the Xcel Energy Center to play their final game for the title of Class AA state champions. During the game against Pequot Lakes, the Bombers lost the first point of the match but then never trailed again. They pulled off an impressive win over the Patriots, sweeping them in three sets for the title every volleyball team was dreaming of earning at the start of the season, state champion.

Madison Burr, a junior on the team, shared that “never would I have believed that we were going to make it to the championship, let alone sweep every team at the state tournament.” She expressed how winning the championship “still doesn’t feel real.”

“A lot of our success has to go to our coaches, but at the same time us girls executed every plan we had made before each and every game leading up to the championship,” Burr stated. “Our coaches have really shown us that they know we can take what’s out on the court. They have believed in us every point and every game,” she summarized.

Throughout the season the Bombers worked hard at practice preparing for the postseason. Varsity head coach Melissa Huseth said “we spent a lot of time on blocking…it [blocking] is very deflating for an opponent.” Huseth also stated that is what they did against the Patriots to shut down their big outside hitter. This is also how the Bombers won the winning point for the title of state champions, with senior captain Elle Lind and junior Madison Burr going up for the big block and they put the ball back down onto the other side of the court for the win. 

Many of the girls said that throughout the season a big focus in practice was defense and blocking, which Coach Huseth believes to be the most important aspect of the game as she said “defense wins championships,” and it did just that for the Bombers.

During the postseason, the Bombers pulled off many exciting wins, but the girls on the team also reached individual milestones as well. First, in the section one class AA championship game against the Caledonia Warriors, freshman setter Falon Hepola, in her first year on the varsity team, achieved her 1,000th set assist. Then, in the Bomber’s state match against the Annandale Cardinals senior captain Kyra Schoenfelder got her 1,000th career dig. The last big milestone reached was that of Madison Burr, in the Bomber’s last state match against the Pequot Lakes Patriots Burr got her 1,000th career kill.

This season had been very exciting for the Bombers and a historical one with the new title of volleyball state champion added to the face of the Bomber’s program.