Season preview story for the Pierz Pioneers volleyball team

2008 Pierz volleyball record: 16-14 overall, 0-1 playoff result, 6-1 CMC record (2nd place)

Two starters return to Pierz volleyball in '09
New head coach has 25 year involvement with program
by Rick Converse, Morrison County Sports Writer

Wally Brown returns to coach the Pioneers for 2009. He has been involved in Pierz volleyball for 25 years.

Brown speaks highly of Lisa Kurtz, Beth Fischer,

Billie Kimman and Shawn Dunn who join him this year in coaching the Pioneers.

The team is a little inexperienced, but Brown said, "We will need to keep improving as the season goes along in order to be successful in the playoffs. If we do this, we should compete for the conference, subsection and section titles."

Senior middle hitter, Sammi Lucking is a returning starter and captain. Senior Miranda Przybilla also returns from last year's starters.

Four other returning letter winners are back. Senior captain Kelsey Meyer and senior Emily Weber return along with juniors Katelyn Fuhrman and Hannah Groves.

The varsity squad includes senior Kayla Stich, junior Erica Broschofsky, Sam Herold, Amber Preimesberger and sophomore Lindsay Monson.

The Pioneers hosted Little Falls on Tuesday in a closely contested match up. Pierz dropped the first game 19-25 while receiving several rotation violation penalties.

Once they had that problem addressed, they came back and won the next two games 25-23 and 28-26.

Little Falls forced a fifth game by winning the fourth 25-21. The fifth and final game was almost all Pioneers as they beat the Flyers 15-5.

Next up for the Pioneers will be the Kimball Cubs who come to town Thursday, at 7:30 p.m. Brown feels the Cubs could surprise everyone in the conference.