The Medford Tigers volleyball team is heading to the Class 1A state tournament Final Four round in their first-ever appearance at the big show.
Medford's enrollment (9-12) is 237, making them (overall) one of the biggest schools in Class 1A. Royalton has a figure of 238 for that same statistic.
B-B-E, meanwhile, has an enrollment (9-12) of 180.
For what it's worth, New Life Academy's enrollment figure for MSHSL purposes is 235 - also making them one of the largest Class 1A teams in Minnesota.
Back to the topic of Medford...if you have time to kill, here's a good way to do just that! I stumbled across this tonight and was thoroughly impressed! Too good not to share, from way back in October of 2010 in Medford, MN:
*The best part I think: at about 1:40, the Tiger does an incredible mid-court backflip! Marvelous! Whoever is the mascot there is someone truly loving life. MAJOR PROPS. MAD RESPECT.
More to follow after a late-night bite to eat!
I'll be updating this web article a few times tonight, at the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper website (something you should also be checking a couple times a week!) https://www.bonanzavalleyvoice.com/story/2018/11/01/bbe/scouting-medford/730.html.
Noteworthy: in reading I've done tonight in Medford, I ran across a story from September 2017 about their non-conference, five-set win over Pine Island. Pine Island led 13-12 in game five before the Tigers ended it with a 3-0 run. The article mentions six players who contributed heavily to the stat sheet. I cross that list with the 2018 roster, and four of them are on this year's team, including both setters. They lost last year's libero to graduation. As a whole, Medford is certainly battle-tested with a good crop of veteran players.