2 weeks Ago By Madeline Warren
Editor's note: This story will be updated later tonight with coverage of the Fillmore Central and Goodhue match. ROCHESTER — After the quarterfinal match on Monday, Mabel-Canton head coach Lonnie Morken said the semifinal matchups have given the Cougars more trouble in recent seasons than the championship match. ADVERTISEMENT He was spot on.
The first-seeded defending section champions had to fight for every point earned in the semifinal game against No. 4 seed Kenyon-Wanamingo. K-W came out hot in the first set, making few mistakes, big kills and perfect serves.
The Knights grabbed set one 25-18. “They're a team that plays a lot of bigger schools,” Morken said. “They beat Stewartville, and we knew that they had a lot of really high-quality wins against good teams.
” Set two started off slow for Mabel-Canton as well with the Knights jumping out to a 5-0 lead. K-W got up 11-8 before the Cougars started slowly digging themselves out of the hole. M-C regained the lead again thanks to some crucial kills and a block from junior middle hitter Kinley Soiney.
From there the opponents were neck and neck the rest of the way, taking turns scoring one or two points. It was one of the longest sets Morken remembers in a while as the Cougars pulled away 31-29. “They don't usually go that long,” Morken said.
“Boy, but we had a couple set points where we missed serves. We could have got down in the dumps, but our kids didn't. (K-W) had a couple chances set point, and we figured out a way to side out against them, then we ended up pulling it out.
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Once we won that marathon, I think our kids really, really, truly believed we could win.” The hitters recorded double-digit kills for the Cougars. Soiney led the way with 23, senior middle hitter Saijal Slafter put up 16 and senior outside hitter Kailey Ingvalson had 11.
Senior setter Sahara Morken was once again a huge asset for M-C putting up 49 assists in four sets. ADVERTISEMENT Despite dropping the third set by 12 points, the Knights did not fold. They had short-term memory and went up 9-1 right away.
K-W maintained control of the set while the Cougars chipped away at the scoring deficit. Mabel-Canton took over at 17-16 and it was a tight race to point 25. “Kudos to Kenyon,” Morken said.
“We knew they weren't going to go away, and they just kept plugging away.” The Cougars avoided the upset, winning 18-25, 31-29, 25-13, 25-20. “In the fourth set, our kids could have folded, but I have so much pride and just so much belief in our kids that it doesn't matter who we play or what the score is, I think we're gonna be able to come back.
We have some very good passing, great setting, and then we got some great attacking,” Morken said. “We're going to have to do this on Saturday as well. It's not going to be easy.
” The Cougars advance to their third section championship in three seasons. M-C won the Section 1, Class 1A final in 2022 and 2023. “The last three years, we went into five sets (in the section semis),” Soiney said.
“So this year, we wanted to go in and take care of business and get it done in four if not three. ..
. (The win) just means a lot because we're going back to the section finals.” Saturday will feature a rematch of last season’s section champion as the Cougars now take on No.
6 Fillmore Central who swept Goodhue on Thursday night. The match is set to start at 12:55 p.m.
at the Mayo Civic Center. ADVERTISEMENT.
