1A volleyball: Bethlehem Academy nabs one more odd-year crown

Tears flowed freely as the Bethlehem Academy volleyball team exited the postgame locker room Saturday at Xcel Energy Center. And they weren't the tears of a losing squad.

The top-ranked and top-seeded Cardinals captured their fourth Class 1A championship in eight years with a 25-18, 25-17, 25-17 victory over second-ranked, second-seeded Minneota. The emotions resulted from the sudden realization that the journey had come to an end.

"You go out there and you don't think about it being your last game," Cardinals senior KariAnne Nass said. "You think about it being the next game to get what you want. Then when it's done and you've finally won, you realize that we're never going to play together any more. We have such a tight bond and we won't get to see each other every single day at practice."

Nass, a 5-7 outside hitter, and classmate Holly Hafemeyer, a 6-2 middle hitter, led Bethlehem Academy to its latest title. Nass had 10 kills and 10 digs and Hafemeyer had 31 kills with an attack percentage of .547.

"We had some seniors that just desperately wanted this," Cardinals coach Franz Boelter said. "During warm-ups I pulled KariAnne and Holly aside and told them, 'People have asked me how this is going to go, and I said, [Minneota is] really a good team but I don't believe that KariAnne and Holly will let us lose.' They both played really well."

Since 2002 Bethlehem Academy, a Faribault school with an enrollment of 133 -- the smallest of all the 1A qualifiers --has finished second in 1A in the even years and first in the odd years.

Bethlehem Academy beat Minneota in the 2005 title match and Minneota defeated the Cardinals for the championship in 2006.

Jena Budde had 46 assists for Bethlehem Academy and Victoria Nass had 19 digs. For Minneota, Taya Kockelman had 25 assists, Ashlynn Muhl had nine kills and Kelsey Hennen and Leah Fadness each had 13 digs.