by Troy Misko
Sportsweek

Wins have come relatively easily for the Spring Lake Park volleyball team over the course of the last two seasons. 

Confidence and respect, however, have been more elusive.

The Panthers, a year after going 20-11 overall and undefeated in North Suburban Conference contests, are playing at similar level this year. Make that a higher level. 

They’ve made up for a lack of height — their tallest player is only 5-9 — with a fast-paced offense to go 19-5 this season and again remain unbeaten in conference action. 

But that kind of success, that kind of consistency doesn’t always translate into unwavering confidence or widespread respect in the state prep volleyball community.

It certainly has not merited recognition in the rankings of the state’s top Class AAA teams. Not yet, anyway.

Spring Lake Park is among the smallest schools in the AAA class. Its program doesn’t have the long, rich tradition of the perennial state powers.

Its recent dominance in the North Suburban — the Panthers haven’t lost a conference match since late in the 2007 season and have dropped only one North Suburban set this season — is often overlooked. That’s because the North Suburban isn’t considered a power conference in volleyball. And the program hasn’t advanced to a section final in recent memory.

But some things are changing for Spring Lake Park. 

The team’s confidence is improving and respect is being gained, albeit slowly, in something of a snowball effect.

The best example of this occurred earlier this month at the Todd Bachman invitational at Lakeville North. The Panthers entered the tournament with a 14-3 record, their only losses — to Annandale, Big Lake and Waconia — coming during prior invitational tournaments. 

Still, Park has not really been tested. The team had played only a couple of foes that have received attention in the state coaches’ rankings — a win over  AA’s Watertown-Mayer at the Buffalo invitational in September; the loss to AAA’s Waconia at the Blaine Invitational on Oct. 3. 

Park definitely has not faced the caliber of opponent it would see at Lakeville North.

The Panthers faced the host team, then ranked No. 8 among the state’s class AAA teams, in their opening match and lost 2-1. They lost their next match to Woodbury, which at the time was in the class AAA top 20. And they beat Hibbing, then No. 8 in class AA, in their third and final tournament match.

Sarah Herlofsky, Spring Lake Park’s coach, noticed a change in her team during the tournament. It was something she hadn’t seen so much from the in the Panthers in their meetings with non-conference opponents earlier this season and something she certainly didn’t witness a year ago when they participated in the same tournament against similar top-flight competition.

“Last year, I think they were kind of [like] deer in headlights looking at these top-ranked teams in the state, not knowing what to do,” Herlofsky said.

“They walked in that gym again this year feeling like, ‘Oh, we belong here.  We can hang.’  And they did.

“The thing that was nice about that is they got a lot of respect coming out of the tournament. That was definitely a confidence boost.”

The Panthers have a core of key players who have played together since their middle school years, including senior stats leaders:

•Hitter and all-around standout Melissa Backes with 193 kills, 40 service aces, 236 digs. •Libero Alyssa Luedtke with 250 digs.

•Play-making setter Marissa Evans with 636 assists (through 23 matches).

In all, this group has been in need of that type of boost for some time. 

This is not to say they have been completely devoid of confidence. Their dominance in conference play in recent years has provided a healthy injection of it.

It showed in their preseason goals. They entered the season expecting to win the North Suburban again. That should have been accomplished Oct 22 with a victory over North Branch.

“The kids feel pretty confident that they’ll go in there and end up undefeated like they were last season in the conference,” Herlofsky said. “They walk into each conference match at least with quite a bit of confidence and I think that’s coming from last year’s season. [But] last year I didn’t see that as much. They would kind of teeter back and forth. We dropped some sets to teams we should’ve more solidly beaten.

“This year, they are really seeing that they are able to solidly beat our conference opponents in three. That builds their confidence where they’re able to start and finish a game strong.”

But that confidence hadn’t carried over into many of their non-conference matches, particularly those against the state best teams, until this season.

“[Outside the conference] the girls are playing a whole lot more maturely than they’ve played in the past,” Herlofsky pointed out. “We’ve played some tougher teams and have done better against them. We’ve had some pretty decent highlights with beating a ranked AA team like Hibbing in the Lakeville tournament and then actually taking a set off Lakeville North.  So beating some of the bigger teams, or at least taking some sets, we’re having that go a lot closer.

“I think they’re turning that corner where they feel like they belong winning, that it’s OK to win, that they’re not just this team that has had a history of losing, that they’re actually showing that they’re skilled enough and confident enough to finish matches and take a win. They’re worthy opponents now.”

How much this will help Spring Lake Park in the Section 5AAA playoffs could be interesting.  Historically, the team hasn’t fared well in section play. Last year the Panthers advanced to the section semifinals before losing to Blaine.

“That’s as far as they’ve been in a number of years, since I think the late ‘70s, early ‘80s,” Herlofsky added.

Even in 2005, when Spring Lake Park went 20-5-1 and won the North Suburban Conference title, the team didn’t make it past the section semifinals. 

“That was the first conference championship that they had in years,” Herlofsky recalled.

“That team was a very skilled team, but I think maybe they lacked the confidence to go into sections, to really fight it out and feel like they deserved to be there and deserved to win and could do that.

“So that has been a process to develop this confidence. I’ve seen it over the last couple years. The team this year is pretty unique in that they’ve played together for so long. 

“This is kind of what they’ve been wanting. If any team is going to take us past sections, it’s going to be this one...”