Can 2019 Diller-Odell Earn a Spot Among These All-Time Great Class D Teams?
I haven’t been shy this summer or fall about hyping up just how good the #1 team in Class D1 – Diller-Odell – is this season. The Griffins, in my opinion, are one of the top 20-25 teams in the…
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Continue ReadingI haven’t been shy this summer or fall about hyping up just how good the #1 team in Class D1 – Diller-Odell – is this season. The Griffins, in my opinion, are one of the top 20-25 teams in the state right now, regardless of class.
After watching Diller-Odell at the MUDECAS Tournament earlier this month, I got to thinking where the Griffins might rank among the all-time great Class D teams in state history.
Diller-Odell, which hosts 4-6 Tri-County tonight, is sitting at 12-0 and has won all 28 of the sets it has played in those matches.
Diller-Odell went 26-8 last year, losing to Humphrey-Lindsay Holy Family in the first round of the state tournament. The Griffins only graduated one senior – Kirsten Bures – who suffered a major knee injury very early in the season and was lost for the year. So, basically, Diller-Odell returned everyone.
Addison Heidemanm is an Iowa State recruit that runs the show for Diller-Odell as the setter and she is averaging 8.0 assists, 1.2 kills, 1.5 aces and 2.9 digs per set. It’s been a long time since a Class D school produced such a good setter. In fact, I believe the last Division I setter recruit to come from Class D would be South Dakota’s Madison Jurgens who is from …….. wait for it …….. Diller-Odell and whose mom Kandice ……. wait for it ……. is the head coach for the Griffins.
But what makes Diller-Odell so special is its depth and balance, which is as good as any Class D team I have ever seen.
On the outside, the Griffins have 6’1 freshman Karli Heidemann, who leads the team with 113 kills and is hitting .351 on the year and 5’10 sophomore Madelyn Meyerle, who has 41 kills and his hitting .216. In the middle, Mackenzie Vitosh is probably one of the two or three best uncommitted seniors in the state. The athletic 6’0 attacker has 104 kills on a .374 hitting percentage and has a team-high 22 blocks. Fellow senior Emily Swanson might only be 5’7, but she’s athletic and has 56 kills and 14 blocks on the year.
Ava Lovitt is a junior right side and setter who has added 80 assists, 12 kills and 56 digs on the season for the Griffins and senior libero Kyleigh Barnts has 49 digs and 64 serve receptions on the year and senior Melinda Kostal has 39 serve receptions and 13 digs.
Simply put, you’re going to have a hard time finding a weak spot on the court for Diller-Odell at any point in the match and they have the offensive fire power and height to absolutely control the net against any Class D team they come up against.
So, let’s talk quick about just how good this Diller-Odell team might be. I say might, because if we are being honest here, to be considered among the greatest Class D teams ever in the state – you’ve got to go undefeated and win a state championship and we are still a long, long ways from being there.
So, let’s just take a look at what some of the greatest Class D teams of all time have done. In reality, there have been what I consider three eras of high school volleyball in the state.
The Beginning Era
It was 1972 when high school volleyball started in the state of Nebraska. At that time, there were only four classes of schools – A, B, C and D. Three teams went undefeated and won a Clsass D title in this era.
The first season, Beaver Valley went undefeated at 22-0 and won the state title. In 1975 Potter went 20-0 and won the Class D title and in 1977 the title went to Lodgepole, which went 19-0.
While those three teams deserve recognition, I’m not sure anyone would go back in time and watch those matches and think that those teams could play with any modern era teams. That’s not to be rude, but the game and athletes have changed so much, it’s not really comparing apples to apples.
The Six-Class Era
1983 was the first year Nebraska went with six classes.
The first real superpower in Class D volleyball came along in the late 1980s when Shickley dominated Class D2 by going undefeated and winning the state title in three consecutive years – 1989, 1990, 1991 – going 76-0 in that time as part of its then-record 104-match winning streak. Columbus Scotus when later break that streak with one of its own for 115.
I’m not going to even try and fool you into thinking I know much about any of those Shickley teams. I was in high school when that streak started. But, it’s pretty clear to me that what Shickley accomplished is the most dominant stretch of volleyball Class D has ever seen.
In Class D2, Greely went 30-0 and won the title in 1996, Hampton went 29-0 and won the title in 2001 and in 2002 Paxton won the state title with a record of 25-0.
In Class D1, Callaway went 23-0 in 1991 and 24-0 in 1992 while winning the state title both years. Paxton went 24-0 and won it in 1994 while Chappell went 27-0 and won it in 1995 and Humphrey St. Francis won it in 2000 with a 24-0 record.
The Rally-Scoring Era
In 2004, rally scoring came to high school volleyball in Nebraska. How difficult has it been to go undefeated and win a state title in the 15 years since? Well, consider that it happened 11 times in the 21 years of the six-class, best-of-three to 15 points era. In the six-class, best-of-five to 25 era, it has happened four times in 14 years.
In the first year of rally scoring, Paxton went 25-0 and won the Class D2 title. In 2008, Ewing went 35-0 and won the D2 title. I really can’t speak with much knowledge about those teams, but obviously they were dominant in their particular seasons.
So, let’s look at what I consider the top three Class D teams of the past decade.
2014 – O’Neill St. Mary’s – 34-0 – Class D1 State Champs
Any talk of the most dominant Class D teams of all-time has to include O’Neill St. Mary’s 2014 squad. The team had incredible balance and one of the best liberos in the state – Mackenzie Wecker, who went on to play at Northeast CC and Midland Unviersity.
Krissy Krotter and Sydney Hupp each had over 200 kills for St. Mary’s that season and Riley Sibbel, Tracy Chvala and Emily Pongratz each had over 150 and Bridget Schneider was one of the top setters in the class.
St. Mary’s won out of 83 of 90 sets on the year. It’s also important to point out that St. Mary’s – a D1 team – stepped up to play Class C1 St. Paul that year and swept the Wildcats – in St. Paul. That’s a St. Paul team that went 24-8. St. Mary’s also had four wins over Stuart that year, which was widely considered the second-best team in the state, but missed out on the state tournament because of wild-card points back in the stone ages the before sub-state round.
Also contributing to St. Mary’s status as one of the best of all time in Class D is the fact that it absolutely rolled through the state tournament. It beat #8 Humphrey St. Francis, #5 Diller-Odell and #2 Ansley-Litchfield in straight-sets on the way to the title. Not only did it sweep all three teams, no team at state scored more than 16 in a set against it. Think about that for a minute.
2016 – Hampton – 35-0 – Class D2 State Champs
There is domination and then there is what Hampton did in 2016 on its way to the Class D2 state title.
Led by Madison VanHousen, who is still tearing up the NAIA at Doane, the Hawks steamrolled through the season like anything that’s ever been seen before in Class D.
VanHousen led the way with 338 kills, Jacey Klassen added more than 200 and Tristan Mason had 198 as the Hawks swept 34 of its 35 opponents on the year. Only Exeter-Milligan, which finished third at state, took a set from Hampton, and that was in a 3-2 match in the Crossroads Conference Tournament.
At state, Hampton beat #7 Red Cloud 25-15, 25-10, 25-15, #6 CWC 25-14, 25-20, 25-16 and #5 Wynot 25-14, 25-17, 25-16.
The Hawks weren’t the biggest team, but they were the deepest and more fluid unit I’ve pretty much ever seen in Class D volleyball. And, Hampton absolutely dominated from the service line, where they had a mind-blowing 362 aces on the year – 4.2 per set!
While Hampton and St. Mary’s are the only two state champions to go undefeated and win a state title in Class D this decade, here are a couple more teams worthy of mention,
The 2017 Johnson-Brock team went 34-1 on its way to winning the Class D1 state title for what would be the third-straight season. The team had current Husker Fallon Stutheit in her junior season and a couple outstanding seniors in Kaitliynn Simon – now at Midland University – and setter Brunn Westenburg.
The only blemish on the Eagles’ record that season was a very tight 2-1 loss to Class C1 Lincoln Christian in the Big Cat Tournament in Fort Calhoun. Lincoln Christian wound up finishing the year 22-9. Johnson-Brock also stepped way up and faced a 20-14 Class B team in Omaha Roncalli and won that match 3-1 at Ralston Arena.
Johnson-Brock also wasn’t quite as dominant as Hampton or O’Neill St. Mary’s at the state tournament as the Eagles needed four sets to beat Bertrand, BDS and Meridian.
Despite losing four times during the season, you’ve got to include the 2018 Archbishop Bergan Class D1 state champions in the conversation. First, you must consider that the Knights are a Class D1 program playing against some of the best C2 and C1 teams in the state in the Centennial Conference. And while Bergan did lose four times, it only lost to two different teams – twice to Lincoln Lutheran and twice to Bishop Neumann. Lutheran and Neumann wound up finishing a combined 64-9 on the season and finished second and fourth, respecitively, in Class C1.
Oh, and Bergan was the only team last season to defeat St. Paul in the regular season 35-2 and third in Class C1. Bergan was led by its three seniors, Lexie Langley – who is playing as a freshman at Augustana, Alli Dieckman, who went to Nebraska Wesleyan, and Hailey Kempf, who was not interested in competing in sports in college despite being one of the best all-around athletes in the state.
And Bergan’s domination at the state tournament is also impressive, having swept all three of its opponents – North Platte St. Patrick’s, Pleasanton and Humphrey-Lindsay Holy Family, giving up more than 18 points in a set just once.
So, there is the bar for being considered one of the best Class D teams of all time in the state of Nebraska. It will be fun to watch Diller-Odell this season and see if they can make their way into the conversation.