Here's video from game three on Thursday night against Royalton:
I want to give a shout out to Marissa Ekness, Katie Reitsma and their University of Minnesota-Morris Cougars volleyball team as they play for an NCAA playoff berth tonight. Reitsma, UMM's libero, hails from a Padua-area dairy farm and is a 2014 graduate of Sauk Centre high school.
Readers of my Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper will know some of the story of Ekness, who is one of the top-ranked hitters in all of Division III volleyball! She is an incredible person on and off the court. Between February and August this year, she conquered a tough battle with melanoma (skin cancer). There is much more to her story, though, and some of it has appeared and will appear again in the Voice newspaper. They face top-ranked (Central Region) University of Northwestern at 7 p.m. on UNW's home court tonight. It is their conference playoff championship match. The loser gets a second-place trophy and waits only for a possible at-large bid, while the winner moves on with an automatic berth to the NCAA playoffs.
Ekness has followed our B-B-E Jaguars volleyball team's success in the playoffs through our conversations and this blog. She's sent many well-wishes our way. I appreciate any support given towards our school and our student-athletes! It is an honor to have one of the best college volleyball players in the country pulling for our team. It's unfortunate our matches overlap tonight. Both have HUGE implications!
For readers here so inclined, if you can send up well wishes, positive vibes and prayers for Ekness and her Cougars team - that would be FABULOUS.
I hope many of you are headed north to Pierz!!! See you there! GO JAGUARS!!
##ConquerEveryDay