Winona St. beats No. 3 Concordia-St. Paul for first time since 2000
In what must have been one of the most emotional games of her career, Maria Fruechte was phenomenal.
It’s hard to know where to start for Fruechte: New team. Home opener. Over 800 fans.
Fruechte, an Iowa State transfer, now playing volleyball for the Winona State University was up against her old high school teammate and good friend, Emma Lange.
And Lange just happens to be on the most decorated Division II volleyball team in the country, third-ranked Concordia-St. Paul.
The Warriors didn’t have a chance Saturday. They haven’t had a chance in years. They came in having lost 24 consecutive matches, dating back to Oct. of 2000, to C-SP, a team that’s won the Division II National Championship every year from 2007-2013 and had lost just nine NSIC matches in the last 13 years.
Make that 10, because the Warriors pulled off the upset at McCown Gymnasium, 3-1 (25-13, 17-25, 24-23, 26-24).
Fruechte stepped into the strong side for Danielle Rampart – WSU’s leading attacker – and had career highs in kills (17) and digs (12), while teammate Taylor Goar had 19 kills, 15 digs. Lange finished with eight kills.
The junior, along with Fruechte their senior year at Caledonia High School, led the team to the Minnesota Class 2A state championship match in 2012, before heading their separate ways.
The Warriors (7-2, 1-1), who lost to C-SP (6-3, 1-1) early this season in four, dominated to start, thanks in part to the crowd itching to finally see the team that’s been on the road since Sept. 2.
The Golden Bears settled down in the second set, and it looked like it was going to be a case of the big dog walking away with the match after that. It wasn’t. But it wasn’t easy, either.
The Warriors got up early in the third set, but C-SP tied it at 17-17 and looked to have it in the bag, up 23-20. Nope. Lauren Kudronowicz got a kill, then an ace, followed by a Goar kill, a C-SP error, before McKenna Larsen won it with a kill for WSU.
In the fourth set, it was a back-and-forth affair but the Warriors controlled for the most part. Up 19-16, however, the Golden Bears tied it on four different occastions (21, 22, 23, 24) before Goar came up with back-to-back kills for the upset.
The Warriors lost to the Golden Bears on Sept. 5 3-1 (25-23, 25-21, 23-25, 25-21). Fruechte had 11 kills in that one, while Lange had seven. That was the first time the two had ever played an organized volleyball match against each other.