Volleyball

Student attendance at Roseville Area High School could be rather low on Thursday considering that the school's volleyball and football teams play state-tournament contests that day.

Thanks to back-to-back section-final victories last week, Roseville is gearing up for maybe its single biggest sports day in the history of the school.

A year ago, the Roseville Area High School volleyball team had a roster full of players who had plenty of varsity experience but none of it in the state tournament. Fast forward a year and the Raiders are back in the state tournament with a less-experienced group of players overall but five of them know what itís like to play in the state tournament.
Roseville received the No. 5 seed and opens the state tournament Thursday at 9 a.m. at Xcel Energy Center against fourth-seeded Eden Prairie.

St. Paul Central visited Hill-Murray High School Friday, Oct. 25, for a Section 4AA quarterfinal volleyball match, and like Washington Technical Magnet School before them, the Minutemen fell victims to the versatile Hill-Murray attack.
The Pioneers launched a methodically varied offense and combined that with a defense that the Central girls found nearly impossible to penetrate.
As a result, the Minutemen fell 3-0.

The St. Anthony Village High School volleyball team finished the regular season with a losing record (11-13) but that was good enough to get the Huskies a home match in the first round of the playoffs. They made the most of the opportunity and now have a new opportunity.
St. Anthony, seeded fourth in the South sub-section of Section 5AA, beat fifth-seeded Mound Westonka in four games (25-16, 25-14, 12-25, 25-12). The White Hawks won just three matches in the regular season but was still seeded ahead of three other teams in the sub-section.

Over the past two seasons, the Roseville Area High School volleyball hasn’t lost a set in the section playoffs. The Raiders will try to keep that streak intact this week when it plays in the Section 4AAA semifinals.
Roseville recorded three consecutive three-set sweeps en route to a berth in the 2012 state tournament and began defense of that section title on Thursday with a three-set sweep of Henry Sibley, 25-18, 25-11, 25-11.

If you were not a part of the jam-packed, wildly cheering crowd at Hill-Murray Field House Oct. 15, then you missed one of the very best volleyball matches between rivals that has been played since the inception of the sport over three decades ago.
The match went five games and provided everything that anyone could ever ask for from two well-matched adversaries.

The Mounds View High School volleyball team is one of four 20-match winners in Section 5AAA. The Mustangs are the No. 4 seed and open the post-season at home on Thursday.
Mounds View hosts the winner of a first-round match between fifth-seeded St. Michael-Albertville (17-11) and No. 12 Irondale. Following a 5-3 start to the season, the Mustangs lost just once in their next 15 matches. Included in that stretch was a championship at the Centennial tournament and a runner-up finish at the Alexandria tournament.