College volleyball: Warriors will have a local flavor

Aug. 18—WILLMAR

— As the

Ridgewater Warriors

enter their third season under head coach Amanda Bohlsen, they will have a new motto which will be showcased on their warm-up t-shirts for the 2023 season.

That motto reads, "One Team. One Mission."

"We're going to focus on staying connected on the team and on our side of the court," Bohlsen said. "There's an intensity that this team plays with that I don't get on my court very often. It's personal to us this year. Everyone feels like they're on a home court.

Eight of the 11 players on the Warriors are from the West Central Tribune coverage area, including six graduates from

MACCRAY High School

. Those athletes are sophomores Gabby Randt, Hallye Foster, Lizzie Koenen, Olivia Naatjes and Cailin Yoose as well as freshman Jordan Thein.

"We're excited to have the gym full," Bohlsen said. "We have Rambow supporting us heavy this year. They're backing behind us because they know that we want to stay local and they know that we recruit local and that we value our local community."

Also from the local area are

Renville County West High School

grad Hannah Pharr and

Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg High School

grad Karli Jensen.

Pharr, a sophomore transfer from Eastern Wyoming College, is happy to be back home after she felt "way too homesick." She was a 2021 West Central Tribune All-Area Volleyball Honorable Mention, an All-Camden Conference selection and was RCW's Team MVP in her senior season.

Jensen, who committed to the Warriors for the 2022 season, had military training in the fall. She is back and plans to play two years at Ridgewater.

"I'm excited to be back where I know people and it's more familiar," Pharr said. "I'm also really excited because this is probably going to be my last season. ... A lot of the girls on our team I have played against."

Morgan Hoffmann, a Sleepy Eye Public High School grad, returns for her sophomore season with the Warriors. She is joined by freshmen Ashlee Nelson of Glencoe-Silver Lake and Emma Kallio of Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted to round out Ridgewater's roster.

"I'm excited for all the new faces we have," Randt said. "We definitely want a lot more wins (this season). We want to make it to regions and go to nationals, which I feel like could be a possibility for us this year."

Ridgewater posted a 5-15 overall record in 2022, including a 4-12 record in the Minnesota College Athletic Conference South Division. Three of the Warriors' five wins came in the final two weeks of their season.

Bohlsen is looking forward to playing more matches this season. Ridgewater has been able to add more matches to its schedule, including a lengthy preseason.

The Warriors compete Aug. 18-20 at the 2023 Opening Weekend Tournament at the UW Health Sports Facility in Rockford, Illinois. They also compete in the MCAC Crossover Tournament on Aug. 25-26 at Anoka-Ramsey Community College in Coon Rapids. They finish their preseason schedule against Alexandria Technical and Community College on Aug. 30 at Alexandria.

Ridgewater opens conference play against Century College on Sept. 8 in White Bear Lake. It also travels to Coon Rapids to face Anoka-Ramsey on Sept. 9.

"We're excited to have the opportunity to play more games this season," Bohlsen said. "I asked for more games. I fought hard and I got them, so I can't complain. I'm stoked. It makes my job harder; just ensuring that we're taking care of our bodies and that we're not gassing out."

Conditioning has been a big focus for the Warriors and so has the team's leadership course, known as LCs, which is utilized for team building.

"(We want) to be able to facilitate hard conversations and work through what conflict looks like through each player," Bohlsen said. "Home life leads to how you to face conflict and not every home life is the same. We learned a lot last year that each player reacts to conflict differently."

The LCs focus on teammates talking about what conflict, accountability, reliability, responsibility and integrity looks like to them. These meetings take place at Ridgewater.

"We're all tight in a dim room looking straight at each other having honest conversations," Bohlsen said. "I think that's where our success is going to come this year because they're going to have stressful weeks and they're going to go to each other and not go outside the program because they know that no one knows it like they do."

For Bohlsen, It is "so much bigger than the sport."

"It's how we're setting these girls up when they leave our program to go be big kids in the real world — that they have a network and connections — and a perspective that they didn't come in with," Bohlsen said.

Bohlsen will also be without Harley Kunstleben, Adelia Pierson and Tayler Schmidt for the first season since she became Ridgewater's head coach in 2021.

"They were the pioneers of this program," Bohlsen said. "They set the culture for this program."

Uniform No. Player, Year, Position, School

No. 1 — Karli Jensen, freshman defensive specialist, Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg

No. 2 — Ashlee Nelson, freshman defensive specialist, Glencoe-Silver Lake

No. 3 — Cailin Yoose, sophomore defensive specialist, MACCRAY

No. 6 — Jordan Thein, freshman right-side hitter, MACCRAY

No. 7 — Morgan Hoffmann, sophomore outside hitter, Sleepy Eye Public

No. 8 — Hallye Foster, sophomore middle hitter, MACCRAY

No. 11 — Emma Kallio, freshman setter, Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted

No. 13 — Gabby Randt, sophomore right-side hitter, MACCRAY

No. 15 — Lizzie Koenen, sophomore outside hitter, MACCRAY

No. 16 — Olivia Naatjes, sophomore setter, MACCRAY

No. 17 — Hannah Pharr, sophomore middle hitter, Renville County West — August 18 — vs. Joliet Junior College, 9 a.m. and vs. Triton College, 1 p.m. (Opening Weekend Tournament at Rockford, IL) — August 19 — vs. Milwaukee Area Technical College, 3 p.m. and vs. Highland Community College, 5 p.m. (OWT at Rockford, IL) — August 20 — vs. Black Hawk College-Moline, 11 a.m. and vs. College of DuPage, 1 p.m. (OWT at Rockford, IL) — August 25 — vs. Northland Community and Technical College, 10:30 a.m. and vs. Iowa Lakes Community College, 6 p.m. (Crossover Tournament at Coon Rapids) — August 26 — vs. Minnesota North College-Mesabi Range, 8 a.m. and vs. North Iowa Area Community College, 10:30 a.m. (Crossover Tournament at Coon Rapids) — August 30 — at Alexandria Technical and Community College, 6:30 p.m. — September 8 — at Century College, 6:30 p.m. — September 9 — at Anoka-Ramsey Community College, noon — September 13 — vs. Minnesota State Community and Technical College-Fergus Falls, 6:30 p.m. — September 22 — vs. Century College, 6:30 p.m. — September 23 — vs. Western Technical College, noon — September 25 — vs. Alexandria Technical and Community College, 6:30 p.m. — September 27 — at St. Cloud Technical and Community College, 6:30 p.m. — September 29 — vs. Rochester Community and Technical College, 6:30 p.m. — September 30 — vs. Riverland Community College, noon — October 4 — vs. Minnesota West Community and Technical College, 6:30 p.m. — October 6 — at Western Technical College, 6:30 p.m. — October 7 — at Rochester Community and Technical College, noon — October 11 — vs. Anoka-Ramsey Community College, 6:30 p.m. — October 13 — at Riverland Community College, 6:30 p.m. — October 14 — at Minnesota West Community and Technical College, noon — October 18 — vs. St. Cloud Technical and Community College, 6:30 p.m. — October 20 — at Minnesota State Community College-Fergus Falls, 6:30 p.m. — October 27/28 — Region 13A tournament, TBA at Coon Rapids — November 9-11 — NJCAA Division III Nationals — TBA at Cedar Rapids, Iowa