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How in the world do the Pirates only get four players on the all-conference team?!? Out of 23 all-conference players named, only four are from Grantsburg.

They only went undefeated in the conference.

No conference team scored more than 19 points on them and that only happened once.

The average score of a conference set was 25-11!

The four girls who were recognized as all-conference (Emily Cole, Kortney Morrin, Annie Palmquist and Lauren Romanowski) were also recognized as part of the all-state tournament team. Three of them (Emily, Kortney and Annie) were ALL-STATE.

You're telling me that this conference is so loaded with talent that there was just no room for Larissa Wilhelm? or Kallie Thoreson? or Tiff Meyer? or Sarah Wald?

It is ridiculous that some of these players are not getting recognized! All of them would start and be one of the best players on ANY OTHER TEAM in this conference.

Look at the Flyway Conference all-conference team. They have Laconia (Grantsburg annihilated them in the state semi-finals) and Kettle Moraine Lutheran. KML is a volleyball powerhouse and won the conference. Laconia finished third. That conference recognized SIX Laconia players.

This rant of mine is not intended to take away from the other 19 girls who were recognized by the coaches… it's just to say that the process is flawed when a team can have such a dominating season and have clearly superior talent yet only four are recognized.

To me it is unfortunate.

It took a while, but the West Lakeland conference volleyball team has been announced and here it is…

Grantsburg
Emily Cole, junior
Kortney Morrin, junior
Annie Palmquist, senior
Lauren Romanowski, senior

Clayton
Annie Grossenbacher
Ashley Grossenbacher
Lindsey LaBlanc
Krystal Kohnen – honorable mention

Clear Lake
Rachel Norby – honorable mention
Jaici Vangsness – honorable mention

Frederic
Chrissy Chenal

Luck
Morgan Denny, junior

Shell Lake
Ashley Anderson
Stephanie Clark – honorable mention

Siren
Carley Emery – honorable mention

St. Croix Falls
Sarah Petznick
Megan Yunker

Turtle Lake
Ashley Lahti
Tricia Hanson – honorable mention
Alex Tschida – honorable mention

Unity
Crystal Donahue – honorable mention

Webster
Mary Johnson
Siiri Larsen – honorable mention

Some of the state champion Grantsburg volleyball team stopped by the WCMP/WXCX station to discuss their season with myself and Sam Klemet (sports director).

We’re sitting tight on the all-conference selections because I don’t have the entire list (volleyball or football).

What I do have is the WSN all-tournament volleyball team*, which differs a little from the WVCA’s team which you can read about in this previous post.

The WSN all-tournament team* has three Grantsburgians…

Kortney Morrin, Annie Palmquist and Emily Cole represented the Pirates. Congratulations on another accomplishment!

RANT ALERT… RANT ALERT…

I just don’t know how some of our girls could get left off that team. With the absolute domination of the tournament four, five or even six of the Pirates could’ve made the team. Only three? Please.

It’s pretty clear that for the WSN team they were allotting three places for the champ, two for the runner up and one each for the two semi-final losers. To me that makes this pre-formulated all-tournament team* a little less special than the WVCA one where it was truly the best team they could think of. Although, I still think Grantsburg could beat the best players from the other three state teams combined (Washburn could too!)

* indicates a “we don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings so each team gets to be represented on this team even though two of them would have lost to the champion’s JV team” made up team.

It is a huge honor to be named to the all-state team. The WVCA (Wisconsin Volleyball Coaches Association) select from the entire state, regardless of division. Grantsburg landed THREE all-staters.

First Team: Kortney Morrin

Third Team: Annie Palmquist

Honorable Mention: Emily Cole

Morrin and Cole aren’t done either, they’re both juniors.

Excellent job, girls… well deserved!

The Pirates placed four girls on the WVCA all-state-tournament team. They are Kortney Morrin, Annie Palmquist, Lauren Romanowski, and Emily Cole.

Way to go girls!

The Grantsburg Pirates left no doubt as to who is the best volleyball team in Division 3 after beating Cuba City in straight sets (25-14, 25-21, 25-11).

Grantsburg saved their best play for last as they came out strong in the first set and never looked back. Things got a little close in the second set, but Grantsburg was clearly the better team and they prevailed.

Annie Palmquist, Sarah Wald, Kallie Thoreson, Lauren Romanowski and Larissa Wilhelm will all be able to say they won their last match in their high school careers. Congratulations to those seniors.

I will update this site later this evening (when I get home) with other state related information.

Congratulations, Pirates! STATE CHAMPIONS!!!

Here’s an update from the Best Western lobby…

Annie Palmquist was Jay Messar’s player of the match for the Grantsburg/Laconia state semi-final.

Here’s his write-up about the division 3 matches plus a preview of tomorrow’s Championship match. As always, he is right on with his analysis.

I also checked the Cheese and Volleyball  site, as usual, and was incredibly surprised and touched by the words of my unknown friend(s) over there. They linked to my story in this past week’s Burnett County Sentinel which talked about my daughter and Sarah Wald’s relationship.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Sentinel has completely changed their format so you can only get the first sentence of the story.

We’re only a few days away from the beginning of the volleyball state tournament in Green Bay.

The four teams in the field are:

For a quick preview of all these teams, here is what the WIAA released.

Quick takes:

Kortney Morrin and Anne Palmquist are studs.  Both of them have over 300 kills (the next closest is 290 [for D3 state qualifiers] and it drops quickly from there).

Kortney hits at a .403 rate and Anne hits at a whopping .474 rate. (Kallie Thoreson is hitting at a .425 rate, with about one fourth the attempts as the other two.)

By comparison the best kill percentage by any other girl in division 3 is .390 by a gal from Cuba City (Katie Langmeier, 180 kills). After that it goes down to .356 by another gal from Cuba City.

The Pirates, as a team are averaging 11.81 kills per game. The next closest is Cuba City with 10.3.

Auburndale has 21 more total kills than Grantsburg (1084-1063), but the Apaches have played 22 more sets than have the Pirates.

Grantsburg has 396 aces. The next closest is 370 by Auburndale. After that Cuba City has 247 and Laconia has only 175.

Grantsburg has the fewest sets played in the Division 3 realm with 90. The most is by Auburndale (112).

Players to watch:

Laconia: The whole team. It doesn’t look like (statistically) anyone stands out over the others, but it does look like they play a lot of girls. According to the stats I’ve received they have ten girls who have played every set this year. That’s pretty impressive. They have two setters and three girls with over 600 attacks. (Kortney Morrin is the only Pirate to have over 600 attacks) So it looks like they spread it around and you can’t key on one person.

Cuba City: They have a pair of good hitters in seniors Katie Langmeier and Emily Kaiser. Both average over 2.3 kills per game.

Auburndale: Kayleigh Kundinger is their junior setter and has more assists than Cuba City has as a team! I’m anticipating watching some pretty good offense from her as it looks like she’s not afraid to go over in two either. She has 57 kills on the season.

The Pirate softball team is once again the Division 3 state champions. They won back in 2006 in the longest game in Division 3 state history (12 innings). They were able to get this one in regulation.

The Pirates dispatched the Laconia Spartans today, 3-0 after avenging a 2004 loss to the Weyawega-Fremont Indians yesterday 7-2 in the semi-final game.

There is so much to write about with this run to the championship, I don’t know where to begin.

There were a lot of defensive highlights this weekend. Heather Davison had a game changing catch in the semi-finals… Tiff Meyer layed out for one today, snagged it and threw a bullet to first base to get the runner by a hair… Ingrid Ames had a couple amazing, tough catches… Annie Palmquist, too. The defense of Grantsburg was great when it needed to be.

The hitting all weekend was timely. Heather Davison was outstanding, as was Michelle Lund, Emily Cole and Tiff Meyer. The baserunning was outstanding and aggressive again and it paid off.

The pitching, though, was the absolute best. Michelle Lund was in a "Michael Jordan, NBA Finals" type of a zone. Nothing could rattle her and she was pitching bb’s up there. She had 14 strikeouts in the semi-finals and five today. If it weren’t for the errors today (5) it could’ve been the best game in the state tournament (although the division four game saw a perfect game pitched by a freshman!).

It was a very fun experience to announce these games. I’ve been privileged to go to state to cover athletics five times now and this is the first time one of the teams has won the tournament.

Congratulations, Pirates! You are a great team and a fun bunch of people!

By the way… with only one player lost to graduation (Ingrid Ames) it’s time to start thinking repeat!