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Assembly required for Wayzata

By Brian Stensaas, Star Tribune, 08/23/11, 10:03AM CDT

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Trojans looking to return Class 3A championship


Wayzata High School varsity volleyball team practiced in school gymn. Head coach Scott Jackson talked with team members during a recent practice. Marlin Levison, Star Tribune

Scott Jackson knows what it's like to be left off a varsity roster.

"I remember not making every high school team I tried out for, and I appreciated it being done a little more privately," he said.
 
So the Wayzata volleyball coach meets with every player individually on what turns into a grueling cut day.
 
"I made the commitment when I started coaching that I was going to do it that way," said Jackson, in his 13th season at Wayzata. "Each player gets a three-minute meeting. I've had very little negative feedback doing it this way."
 
This season, Jackson's group of 13 players that survived the cuts include a pair of middle hitters who thought they would be fighting for one spot. Turns out, they will each get a chance.
 
The Trojans are back on the court this fall a year removed from advancing to the Class 3A championship match against Lakeville North. The Panthers came through in that tilt, but Wayzata, ranked No. 3 in Class 3A this season, has its sights set on returning.
 
If it does so, the path will be paved with one of its leaders on the sidelines to begin the season.
 
Toni Okuyemi suffered a ruptured Achilles' tendon in April while competing in the annual Northern Lights Qualifier in Minneapolis. She had surgery a week later and doctors told the senior middle to expect a recovery time of four to six months.
 
"At first I was a little worried. They give you a pretty broad date of when you might be back," Okuyemi said. "I've just been training hard and doing all the things the doctors tell me so I can get back as fast as I can."
 
Okuyemi receives physical therapy once a week and heads to the gym every day to get stronger. She cannot yet do any running, but she's been exercising on elliptical machines and working on the arm swing that earned her a Star Tribune All-Metro second-team nod a year ago and a spot on the Class 3A all-tournament team.
 
She could be cleared to play as soon as Sept. 20, when she will next be evaluated by surgeons.
 
"Any time I don't feel like working out or going to the gym, that date is in the back of my mind," Okuyemi said.
 
Wayzata is set to play Lake Conference rival Hopkins that night, and before it has six other matches (including one against preseason Class 3A, No. 2 Bloomington Jefferson) and a tournament at Class 2A stalwart Marshall.
 
"We have some huge matches early in the season," fellow team captain Julia Doyle said. "We have some larger goals, but we have to do the little things now to be able to reach them, and we all know that."
 
For the time being, that will come with Sarah Watne and Jessie Miller in the middle taking over for Okuyemi and Coral Evans, a senior on last year's team.
 
"Both of them stepped up right away in tryouts," Jackson said. "Right to the top of the heap."
 
Even without one of his star players, Jackson said he expects the Trojans to be the favorite to advance out of the new-look Section 6 -- which now includes Eden Prairie and Minnetonka.
 
"We embrace that," he said. "We've figured out how to play with a target on our backs and go after it."

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