Look out for Hutchinson. The Tigers are playing their best volleyball of the season and have a front line that could give any team trouble.
Due to a late-season surge, Hutchinson (16-7, 4-1) can win the Wright County Conference East Division championship with a victory over Orono (11-15, 2-2) on Monday night in our Top Game of the Week.
Coach Dennis Piechowski has been preaching mental toughness all season, and his Tigers are now playing with the intensity and consistency he has been demanding.
Hutchinson has won seven consecutive non-tournament matches, but it was a Sept. 24 five-set loss to Mayer Lutheran, ranked No. 1 in the Class 1A coaches' poll from Oct. 7, that ignited the Tigers’ surge.
In that defeat, Piechowski said he saw his team play with the required intensity for the first time this season and that his players left with a bouyed confidence despite losing.
The Tigers hosted conference rival New Prague on Oct. 3, and won 3-1 while battling back from a number of deficits, a few as many as eight points.
Defensive play, as much as anything, has sparked the Tigers’ surge. Hutchinson did a better job of keeping the ball off the floor against New Prague.
And with 6-foot-4 middle hitter Morgan Ellis, 6-3 middle hitter Grace Daak and 6-2 outside hitter Adri Rhoda, the Tigers have the size to force opponents to make offensive adjustments. Junior right-side hitter Aubrey Brunkhorst is another playmaker along the Tigers’ front line.
There is plenty of competition for the state tournament berth out of Class 3A, Section 2, with No. 10-3A Minnetonka, New Prague, Eden Prairie, Mankato West and No. 6-3A Shakopee, the defending section champion, all playing at a high level. But don’t write off Hutchinson.
Will the Tigers return to the state tournament for the first time since 2011 when they made the jump from Class 2A to Class 3A? Piechowski thinks so. The right seeding and a couple of breaks could get the job done — and that continues Monday.
Orono, meanwhile, is left to play the spoiler. The Spartans, whose counter to the Tigers’ large front line is 6-foot senior right-side hitter Josephine Peterson and 6-foot junior outside hitter Mary Peterson, can make the road for Hutchinson more difficult with a victory in the regular-season finale.