A home championship!

None of the volleyball players were born the last time New Hampton won its own volleyball invitational.
If they’ve ever won.
Going back through the old newspaper books at the Tribune show that the tournament started in 1984. The Chickasaws haven’t won the invite in coach Jess Geerts’ tenure as head coach — that’s 13 years — and books going back to the mid-90’s still don’t show any championships, however some of the information from the mid-90’s is incomplete.
Tripoli and Sumner-Fredericksburg are the perennial powerhouses of the tournament, but neither made it to the final round this year. Tripoli did win Pool A and Don Bosco was second while New Hampton and Denver were the top teams in Pool B. The Chickasaws defeated Don Bosco in a semifinal match and Denver won over Tripoli, setting up a rematch between Denver and New Hampton for the title.
Geerts, while expecting her team would win the title, picked out Trip and Sumner-Fred as the top challengers.
“I didn’t expect Denver to be what they were today,” she said after the tourney. “They’re young, I was impressed, they held their own. We beat them easily in pool play and I thought the finals would be the same.”
But it wasn’t, and the Cyclones took the first set 25-15.
“I think our kids went in too relaxed and Denver came out firing.”
The second set was close at first. Although a Rachel Rinken kill put the Chickasaws up 6-2 the Cyclones kept the score close until a 10-point run by the NH girls gave them a 20-9 lead and they closed it out with a 25-18 win.
For the full story, please see the Sept. 6 Tribune.