At the Heritage Christian Academy Tournament, Mabel-Canton coach Lonnie Morken became only the second person in Minnesota state high school volleyball history to amass his 900th career win. Morken did so in a 2-0 (25-11, 25-11) pool play win over Coon Rapids. For the tourney, the Cougars went 5-1, losing their first match of the year to West Lutheran 1-1 (14-25, 25-17) in pool play, but they came back and won the event. M-C also had pool play wins over Minneapolis-Camden 2-0 (25-9, 25-8) and Spectrum 2-0 (25-17, 25-14). In tourney play, the Cougars downed Class AA Legacy Christian 2-0 (25-15, 25-23) and Class AAA Hutchinson (25-17, 25-19) in the finals. LCA is 9-3 after the event. Of those M-C played, only West Lutheran was not a AA, AAA, or AAAA school. Tourney leaders for the Cougars were Gwen Rein (124 assists, 7 aces), Braylee Stortz (60 kills, 26 digs), Ella Halverson (45 kills), Livia Garness (35 digs, 58-59 serving, 9 aces), Lauren Burke (36 digs), Kaylee Kleppe (24 digs), and Mya Tweten (18 kills). It culminates a week where M-C went 8-1. They also notched SEC wins over Kingsland 3-0 (25-15, 25-19, 25-11), Southland 3-0 (25-8, 25-20, 25-16), and Schaeffer Academy 3-0 (25-10, 25-14, 25-6). Versus the Knights, Stortz had 20 kills (5 digs, 4 aces), hitting .548. The team had 22 aces. Five girls had four. Rein had 32 assists including the 1,000th of her career. Halverson (12 kills, 4 aces), Kleppe (6 digs, 15-16 serving, 4 aces), Garness (5 digs, 13-14 serving, 4 aces), and Burke (9 digs, 12-12 serving 4 aces) helped. The Knights were led by Sydney Wendt (8 assists, 11 digs), Aliyah Holland (7 digs), Taylor Lawson (3 kills, 5 digs), Kinley Merkel (7 digs), Chloe Drury-DeBoer (6 digs) and Audrey Montgomery (4 kills). The match versus the Rebels (4-0, 6-0 overall) pitted the SEC-East leading Cougars (3-0 SEC/overall) versus the West leaders. M-C hit .430 as a team. Stortz had 21 kills on .559 hitting plus 12 digs. Halverson (14 kills, 5 digs), Rein (3 kills, 36 assists, 10 digs), Garness (6 digs, 22-23 serving, 4 aces), Burke (14 digs), and Kleppe (5 digs) helped. Versus SA, Halverson had 16 kills on .560 hitting. Stortz added 11 kills on .529 hitting plus 6 digs. Rein (19 assists), Garness (6 digs, 16-17 serving, 7 aces), Burke (11 digs, 8-8 serving, 2 aces), and Ava Austin (7 assists, 5 digs) also did work. M-C had 16 aces. This year’s Cougar team, ranked #9 in Class A, is a hodge-podge of different aged girls, but young. Halverson is the team’s lone senior, Burke the lone junior. Standouts Rein and Stortz are just freshmen. As usual, Morken does a lot with what he has. M-C (5-0 in the SEC, 10-1 overall) sits a half game back of Spring Grove (6-0, 7-3) in the SEC-East
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