Congratulations to the Gophers volleyball team for making it to the Final Four! It is an accomplishment that made your state proud and inspired younger female athletes. Thank you, also, to the Star Tribune for featuring their success front and center on Thursday's sports page.I grew up in Minnesota as a girl playing sports, and my mother has avenged her inability to do so by embracing both the Gophers and Lynx women's basketball teams through season tickets and avid support. Too often, though, we see the victories of these fine athletes relegated to a small corner on an inside page, or with just a headline announcing the win dwarfed by the big story detailing a loss by one of the many male teams in the state. The continued progress of female athletics involves not only girls and women entering the game, but the reflection of such developments -- including focus on the athletes themselves -- in media coverage. I hope this prominence is but a glimpse of what is to come. HELEN SCHNOES, MINNEAPOLIS