Bulldogs Section Champs!

Photos by Marianne Pierson

Tyler Peterson-NSO

In a night full of emotions, the No. 1 seeded Carlton Bulldogs would be the ones celebrating their Section 7A championship victory over the McGregor Mercuries, winning 3 straight matches to win 3-0 and advance to the State Tournament at the Xcel Energy Center for the first time since 2004.

The evening would get to a quick start with Carlton grabbing a quick 6-0 lead in the first match before McGregor would respond with rallying 3 of their own off to cut the lead in half. McGregor would continue to play well grabbing their first lead of 11-10 after going on a 8-4 run, but the Bulldogs would come storming back, scoring 5 unanswered points before McGregor would call a timeout to attempt to get Carlton out of their groove. The timeout wouldn’t affect Carlton however, as they would continue their hot streak and increase their lead to 24-13. But McGregor never gave up, narrowing the lead to 7 before Carlton finally ended it, taking match 1 25-17.

Match 2 would begin evenly across the board for the Bulldogs and Mercuries, each trading points to a 5-5 tie early in the game. The closeness would continue midway through with Carlton narrowly holding onto a 12-10 lead before going on a nice little 4-0 run before McGregor would call a timeout. But once again, the timeout wouldn’t faze Carlton as they would go on to grab the 19-12 lead. Carlton would continue to take advantage of Mcgregors miscues in match 2 and would win in commanding fashion, 25-15.

Match 3 would begin just like match 2, closely contested and a 5-5 tie early in the game. Carlton would then rally off a nice run to give them the 10-7 lead, but the match would continue to remain close midway through with Carlton keeping a slim margin, 13-11. Carlton would continue to battle and make nice plays to give them a 19-14 lead and eventually increase it to a 24-15 lead. But McGregor continued to show heart, rallying 5 straight points and put some pressure on the Bulldogs, narrowing it down to 24-20. Carlton would however seal the deal when sophomore Macy Belich would get the kill to send Carlton to their 3rd state appearance since 2003.

Leading the way for the Section 7A champion Bulldogs was junior Grace Macor who had 13 kills and 5 blocks and sophomore Macy Belich who had 12 kills and 5 blocks. Also in the exciting victory, sophomore Amanda Groth had 8 kills, junior Jessica Stanslaski had 7 kills and both setters, junior Brianna Walton and sophomore Hannah Benson would both have 26 set assists respectively in the win.

For the Mercuries in the losing effort, senior Gretchen Grams would give McGregor a solid effort with 11 kills on the evening. Also helping the Mercuries was senior Korinna Mickelson who had 6 kills, sophomore Sydney Jensen who had 5 kills, and senior Abby Hawkinson who had a nice performance of 22 set assists.

The Mercuries end their impressive season which included being the Section 7A runner-ups, winning 13 of their last 15 games and finishing with a nice record of 20-8 on the season.

The Carlton Bulldogs improve their record to 26-5 on the season and will hope to continue their run down at state after becoming the Section 7A champions for the third time in school history. The Bulldogs will make their trip down to the Xcel Energy Center and play their first game on Thursday, November 7th when they take on the #2 seeded Minneota Vikings (29-3) at 3 PM.

Tyler Peterson can be contacted at tpeterson@northlandsportsonline.com