Sports

It was a beautiful day on Saturday, Sept.

With a pair of victories against a good Wabasso squad, the state-ranked Redwood Valley Cardinals would capture the Wabasso Volleyball Invitational Saturday afternoon in Wabasso.The Cardinals (10-2) went 5-0 on the day, topping Wabasso 1-1 and 2-0 and also defeating MACCRAY (2-0), SW MN Christian (2-0) and BOLD (2-0).The games with the Rabbits (12-3) were competitive battles as the Cards won in the first meeting 26-24, 23-25, 5-3 and then 25-17, 25-19 in the second meeting.Leading the way statistically for the Cards was Kendall Huhnerkoch with 43 kills, 29 digs, nine blocks, six set assists and five ace serves.Cali Johnson added 27 kills and 34 digs and Hailyn Ourada had 110 set assists, seven kills, 22 digs, six blocks and four ace serves.Caitlin Flinn finished with 20 kills, eight digs and three blocks, Gabby Berg had 13 kills and two blocks, Brinn Wicks was 41-of-43 serving with five aces to go along with 23 digs and Addison Schmidt had eight kills, two set assists and 25 digs.Kayla Bill was 38-of-41 serving with six aces to go along with six digs and Kimberlyn Miketey was 49-of-51 serving with six aces to go along with two kills, five set assists and 16 digs.Earlier in the week the Cards rolled to a 3-0 win over Montevideo and also topped JCC 3-0.Against the T-Hawks, Huhnerkoch finished with 18 kills, Ourada had 29 set assists and a kill, Johnson added nine kills and seven digs, Schmidt had two kills and four digs, Berg added three kills and two blocks, Wicks had three kills and five digs and Miketey had three ace serves and five digs.Redwood Valley will compete in the big Midwest Volleyball Warehouse Tournament on Saturday.For the Rabbits in the tournament they were led by Alivia Olson with 40 kills, six ace serves and 13 digs.Camryn Irlbeck had 22 kills, Audrey Johnson added 40 digs and five ace serves, Sara Carlson had 89 set assists and was a perfect 35-of-35 serving with 10 aces, Emma Salfer had 14 digs, Leah Mathiowetz had 10 kills and four ace serves and Kenley Guetter had 19 kills and two ace serves.

The highly ranked Redwood Valley boys and girls cross country teams continued to remain unbeaten with victories at the TMB and Luverne Invitational’s.The Cardinal boys - ranked first in Class A - rolled to an easy win Thursday in Tracy with 24 team points (MCC would finish second in the 16 team race with 95).Will Ahrens rolled to the title in a time of 16:01, Kilen Cilek was third (16:17), Landyn Nordby returned to the line-up and was fourth (17:25), Mason Anderson was seventh (17:30) and Clayton Salmon ninth (17:52).Tyler Robinson set a new personal best to place 10th (17:53) and Ben Jorgenson was 14th (18:29).The JV also won led by Aidan Salmon, Elway Berg and Lane Breitkreutz who finished 1-2-3 respectfully.In Luverne, the Cards would top their host 24-50 to win again.Ahrens (15:58) and Cilek (16:13) would finish one-two to lead the Cards.Nordby (17:13) was fourth, Robinson (18:07) ninth, Clayton Salmon 11th (18:22), Jorgenson 14th (18:28) and Aidan Salmon 21st (18:50).The JV also won led by the top four finishes of Berg, Breitkreutz, Joe Gerke and Thomas Gerke.The Redwood Valley girls - ranked second in Class A - got a good battle with rival Canby at the TMB Invite but would win 36-48 in the 16-team race.Addie Thomes (20:05) and Ellie Nelson (20:18) finished one-two with Lola Luze (20:34) coming in fourth.Reese Prescott (21:55) was 12th, Madi Munsell (22:26) 19th and Aleena Vetsouvanh 44th (24:55).The JV was led by Klaira Horejsi in sixth and Ming Lin in ninth.Against Luverne, the Cardinal girls were without Nelson and Munsell was unable to finish the race but they would still win over Adrian (45) and JCC (54) with 31 team points.Thomes led the way with a third place finish (20:04), Luze was fourth (20:27) and Prescott ninth (21:26).Vetsouvanh established a new personal best to place 19th (23:56) and Horesji was 27th (24:54).Mary Slavin led the JV with a first place finish and Heather Panitzke was third.The Cards are back in action today at the NL/Spicer Invitational.

Senior Ryder Crawford hauled in three touchdown receptions to tie a school record as Redwood Valley would roll to a 29-18 victory over visiting Maple River Friday night at Inglis Field.On a night where the legendary 2003-04 Section champion Cardinal squad was honored, Crawford and fellow senior Ethan Louwagie would hook up three times, a 15-yard touchdown in the second quarter, a 12-yarder in the third and the game clinching 21-yarder in the fourth to clinch the victory and keep the Cards unbeaten at 2-0.Crawford - who finished with six catches for 100 yards on the night - tied a school record held by several former Cards over the years most notably Ben Stoterau back in 1991 in a win over New Ulm.The Cards got on the scoreboard first on a 1-yard plunge from Louwagie in the first quarter.

The veteran Redwood Valley boys and girls cross country teams opened up the season in impressive fashion by dominating the Lakeview Invitational.Both teams have five of the top six individual finishers to run away with the win in the seven-team event.The Cardinal girls were led by Addie Thomes (19:49) and Ellie Nelson (20:22) who finished one-two respectively.Lola Luza (20:47) was fourth, Madi Munsell (20:57) fifth and Reese Prescott (21:22) sixth as the Cards finished with 18 team points to easily outdistance second place Canby (37).Annie Lunde (24:00) was 16th and Aleena Vetsouvanh (24:23) 17th to round out the varsity times.Ming Lin would lead the JV to a first place finish as she won with a time of 25:27.Klaira Horejsi (25:32) was third, Avery Monson (27:55) sixth and Izzy Kleinhuizen (28:18) eighth.The Cardinal boys were led by dynamic one-two tandem of Will Ahrens (15:56) and Kilen Cilek (16:16) who finished one-two respectively.Clayton Salmon (17:28) took 11 seconds off of his personal best to place third, Mason Anderson (17:37) and Tyler Robinson (17:57) also set personal bests in finishing fourth and sixth and Ben Jorgenson knocked a whopping 1:40 off of his previous best to take eighth place in 18:26.Aidan Salmon (19:05) was 10th to round out varsity top seven.Lane Breitkreutz led the JV team to a win by recording a personal best time of 19:26.Elway Berg (20:09) was second, Joe Gerke (20:30) third, Thomas Gerke (20:35) fourth and Cheng Lin (21:03) fifth.Jaxon Berg won the junior high race.The Cards are back in action today as they travel to Tracy for the TMB Invitational.