Annie Palmquist (#6 … first person sitting in front row l-r) will be remembered for her ability to create dents in the gym floor from her powerful kills on the volleyball court, her solid stick and great glove in softball

Now she is making a name for herself for a different team.

Currently, she is pounding the volleyball for Minnesota State University – Moorhead. The Dragons have started off well, and Annie is red hot. As a sophomore with four years of eligibility left (she was medically red shirted last year) she is second on the team in kills and kill percentage (click here for all stats).

There is no doubt that the D-II sophomore has a great career in front of her and we'll be keeping tabs on it on wearegrantsburg.com

For more information about Annie and to keep up with her click here.

To watch a live stream of her games click her for a schedule.

Some recent articles about Annie:

Photos courtesy of Greg Palmquist

Post from: We are Grantsburg

Once a Pirate…

The Pirates have been ripping through opponents this year again, in fact they're ahead of last year's state champion pace. Last year the Pirates lost a match in the Ashland tournament to Hayward (then beating them later in the tourney) en route to a 36-1 record. After losing such stud seniors this year (Annie Palmquist, Lauren Romanowski, Sarah Wald, Kallie Thoreson, and Larissa Wilhelm) I didn't know what to expect from this year's team. I should know better by now.

The Pirates have beaten #6 ranked Washburn – twice, they've taken care of Division 1 Eau Claire North (17-6, 3-0) and they've only lost two sets (one to Webster and one to Washburn).

Grantsburg beat Clear Lake in straight sets (25-12, 25-11, 25-6) last night in my first broadcast of volleyball since the state championship match in Green Bay last fall. It took less than an hour to send Clear Lake back to the bus. I can say that this team is still fantastic.

The serving was crisp, and at its best, unreturnable. The defense was solid and the offense was there as well. There may have been some small errors which to the casual observer are glossed over by the overall dominance of the match, but I'm sure the coaching staff saw them as clear as a pimple on prom night. And they'll fix them so that by the time the playoffs come around there will be no chink in the armor. Again.

If you're interested in the broadcast of the match have at it (announcing doesn't start until around 25 seconds into the recording).

West Lakeland Standings

Post from: We are Grantsburg

Pirate volleyball has no equal in the area

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.

Post from: We are Grantsburg

All-Conference snubbings

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

Post from: We are Grantsburg

All Conference team announced

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State champs on WXCX

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.

Post from: We are Grantsburg

More post-season accolades for Pirates

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!

Post from: We are Grantsburg

WVCA All-state team announced

Way to go girls!

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Grantsburg places four on all-tournament team

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!!!

Post from: We are Grantsburg

They are the Champions

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.

Post from: We are Grantsburg

Palmquist gets game ball