SCENES FROM A TOURNAMENT
The 2018 state tournament wrapped up Saturday with new champions in each class. Two champions moved up the ladder from runner up in 2017; one titlest moved up from a second place finish in 2016. Minneota (#1 seed) won their second title (their first came in 2016); North Branch (#4 seed) and Champlin Park (#2 seed) won their first ever titles.
Only Minneota was able to stay number one throughout the tournament. Minneota also played the fewest sets at 10. Ada-Borup was the only team to take a set off the Vikings. Five of their set wins were over ten points. They were 1-1 in sets decided by two points.
North Branch was the first four seed to win the AA title. Since seeding started in 2008. Eight number 1s have won the event, with two numbers 2s (Maple Lake 2016, Wadena-Deer Creek in 2010). NB maxed out with 15 sets. The Vikings were 3-2 in sets decided by two points including both fifth sets on Friday and Saturday. The owned one set win over 10 points.
Champlin Park got their revenge on the Wildcats in a championship replay of the Chaska tournament held October 20. There Eagan won in three taking the final two sets in the best of three. Besides this being CP’s first championship, it was the Northwest Suburban conference’s first title. Andover (2007) and CP (2016) were the only other NWS teams in the finals. CP was the only AAA quarterfinal winner to get the job done in three sets this year. The Rebels played a dozen sets all weekend. They were 0-1 in sets decided by two points and had two set wins over 10 points.
This marks Eagan’s second straight second place finish. The Wildcats breaks a record for big school consecutive championship appearances at six (2013 to 2018. Previous record holder was Armstrong with five (1980-84) all championships by the way.
FANTASTIC FINISHES WITH ?
The AA final was decided by a double contact call (see below). The AAA final ended on a missed serve. This is not how the script the fans want should play out, but with rally scoring the game doesn’t have to end on a swing.
DOUBLE CONTACTS
A double contact call ended the fifth set of the AA title game, and it seemed like this year there was an overabundance of double contact calls. But that isn’t really the case. There was a drop across all classes. But there are things to note: Is AA really the home of double contacts? In both years that class hit the high notes.
It also depends who is refereeing the game. Some referees notice double contact way more often. If you notice the counts in the AAA 2017 title game and AA 2018 title games are double digits. A common denominator? The same official worked both.
| Year | A | AA | AAA |
| 2017 tourn | 58 | 71 | 58 |
| 2017 title | 1 | 1 | 11 |
| 2018 tourn | 54 | 62 | 55 |
| 2018 title | 2 | 17 | 6 |
AGE & HEIGHT
Are players getting older? Younger? Smaller? Taller? Looking back to the state tournament 10 years ago we see that the average age of players is getting somewhat younger in the smaller classes. For all intents and purposes AAA remained the same. What surprised me was the average size of players has increased across all three class by almost a half an inch. As you would expect the higher the class the older and taller the player. I have also included the six schools that were in the tournament in 2008 and those that returned this year. The size increase is very visible at Shakopee and St. Cloud Cathedral with the average up over an inch. Only the class A repeats were both smaller and younger.
| class | 08age | 08ht | 18age | 18ht | 10agedif | 10htdif |
| a | 10.91 | 7.34 | 10.68 | 7.57 | 0.23 | 0.23 |
| aa | 10.97 | 7.54 | 10.88 | 7.99 | 0.09 | 0.45 |
| aaa | 11.03 | 8.51 | 11.08 | 9 | 0.05 | 0.49 |
| shk | 10.6 | 7.33 | 10.79 | 8.78 | 0.19 | 1.45 |
| mrsh | 11.06 | 7.8 | 11.2 | 8 | 0.14 | 0.20 |
| conc | 11.29 | 7.71 | 11 | 8.33 | 0.29 | 0.62 |
| scc | 11 | 7.87 | 11.43 | 9.07 | 0.43 | 1.20 |
| bbe | 11.27 | 7.8 | 10.77 | 7.77 | 0.50 | 0.03 |
| ab | 11 | 7.15 | 10.79 | 6.92 | 0.21 | 0.23 |
Unfortunately, in 2018, Watertown-Mayer and Edina could not afford a tape measure —–both teams failed to list the heights. There were no tape measures at Rochester Mayo ten years ago.
OFF
No, I was not dying with no posts lately, but with my official duties at the state tournament I was unable to crank out the morning posts and did get a chance to write in the evening. Things will slowly get back to normal now.