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Today was supposed to be the airing of the D3 State Championship match between Grantsburg and Cuba City. It was rescheduled to air tomorrow (Sunday, November 22) at 4pm. It's channel 40 for those with Grantsburg cable. Thanks to Deb Johnson for the heads up!

The Grantsburg volleyball team gets set to travel to Hammond, Wisconsin today to defend their regional championship for the 16th consecutive year.

They take on the St. Croix Central Panthers (7-2, 9-7 with six games unreported) from the Dunn-St. Croix conference.

Grantsburg coach Bill Morrin won his 800th match of his career last night by beating Prescott in straight sets. 800, people… that’s pretty dang good. I’ll write more about that acheivement in a later post and try to put it into some perspective. Congratulations, Coach Morrin! (thanks to Deb Johnson for giving me the heads-up on this one)

The Pirates have already defeated the Panthers this year 2 -0 during the Grantsburg tournament.

SCC defeated seventh seed Unity 3-1 last night to advance to tonight’s regional championship.

SCC lost earlier this year to Prescott (which Grantsburg solidly dispatched last night in straight sets) and Clayton (not a bad thing, but another common opponent for the two teams. Grantsburg beat Clayton easily during the conference season).

Grantsburg is 31-1 this year with only three set losses. Their set record is 76-3… there is nobody remotely close to that in all of Wisconsin womens’ volleyball.

The match starts at 7pm tonight and you can hear it on 105.7 WXCX.

The Grantsburg volleyball team heads north to the annual Ashland tournament held in, uh, Ashland.

The tournament starts with pool play and then ends with the top teams squaring off to determine the big winner. My hunch is Grantsburg will be one of those teams left standing at the end of pool play.

Did you know Bill Morrin (Grantsburg’s head volleyball coach) got his volleyball coaching start at Ashland Washburn? Well, you do now.

All the info in this post was blatantly and brazenly ripped off of the girls’ volleyball website maintained wonderfully by Deb Johnson. How she has time to update that site with all the time she spends on Facebook is anyone’s guess. But thanks to her anyway… it makes life just that much easier for this guy.

The Pirate guys flirted with disaster all game and it finally wound up catching up to them in the seventh inning.

The Pirates fell 5-1 to the Elk Mound Mounders in the sectional semi-final game, giving up four runs in the top of the seventh to end Grantsburg’s remarkable season.

The game was close until then. Both teams scored one run in the sixth inning, then that fateful seventh inning for the Pirates. The leadoff hitter was hit, there were two or three walks and a couple hits in there that combined for four runs in the final frame.

The Mounders (what kind of mascot is that, anyway? Is it some sort of politically correct compromise? If I were a mound I’d be pretty offended) pitched extremely well giving up only four hits and striking out five. Their pitcher was in control most of the game.

The Pirates had won eleven in a row and they had a chance to win the game. They dodged early bullets by throwing two runners out at home… in the first inning! The first was Nolan Hanson to Ben Larson with Larson tagging out the advancing runner. The second came with the bases loaded and the batter bounced it to pitcher Thane Larson who threw it home for the force then Larson gunned it to first baseman Jake Ryan for a rare 1-2-3 double play.

Though the season didn’t end the way the Pirates and their fans would’ve liked to have seen, the team represented their home town well and they deserve our congratulations. They played ball like it should be and they were rewarded with a great season and a trip to Sectionals. Only sixteen teams get to do that every year.

Congrats, Pirates!

Really cool photo courtesy of Marianne Shira