The victory also left Rogers, which won its first Section 8 championship and made its first state tournament appearance last season, with an outside opportunity to add a conference championship to its trophy case this season. In the way of that goal are top-ranked Champlin Park, who is 5-0 in conference play, and Maple Grove, who is 5-1 and plays host to unranked Andover on Thursday.

But those thoughts were far from the mind of Schmidt and her father, Royals coach Bo Schmidt, throughout Tuesday’s game. The family learned Monday that Bo’s daughter Caitlin, a ninth-grader on the Royals’ B-squad, has a tumor in her abdomen. The family has not received a diagnosis and is waiting for more detail.

Bo Schmidt said he welcomed the two-hour distraction of the match on Tuesday night and noted that Anya Schmidt played to her usual form — that of a state record-holder for most service aces in a season. Although the Minnesota State High School League lists Bemidji’s Courtney Bitter’s 171 service aces in 2007 as the state record, Bo Schmidt said his daughter recorded nearly 200 aces as a freshman last year.

Anya Schmidt finished last season with 197 service aces, including 166 in the regular season. She added 31 in six postseason games.

The sophomore right side and setter’s impact on Tuesday’s game was undeniable. Schmidt is the leader of an extremely effective group of servers on the Royals’ roster. Andover head coach Connie Huberty said the Huskies recognize the serving power of the Royals (19-2, 5-1).

“When they can play that way on the serve-receive it can really take you out of your game,” Huberty said.

The effectiveness of Rogers’ serve kept the Huskies team away from the net and got into the heads of their younger and more inexperienced players. Huberty described much of what was going on with her team throughout the game as a battle of confidence.

“We can learn from this,” Huberty said. “We’ve seen our girls play some great volleyball against some great teams this year. We can get better.”

With just a few regular-season games remaining, Andover (13-6, 4-3) can look ahead to the Section 7 tournament, where the Huskies will be among the favorites with Forest Lake and Centennial.

While the Huskies face the task of regaining their confidence, Bo Schmidt said his Royals are finally starting to find theirs. Anya Schmidt and Hannah Bruskiewicz are the only returning starters from last season and Bo Schmidt said it took a few games for the team to adapt to new roles and responsibilities.

That shows in the team’s serving game, Schmidt noted, which continues to improve and get back to the form the 2021 team displayed in reaching the third-place game at last fall’s Class 4A state tournament.

But all that’s a thought for another day, according to Schmidt. As he left the Rogers gym on Tuesday night, daughter Caitlin was at the top of his thoughts.