Hawley Volleyball Celebrates First Volleyball State Title

HAWLEY DEFEATED SOUTHWEST CHRISTIAN IN THE MSHSL CLASS AA VOLLEYBALL STATE CHAMPIONSHIP ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9.

HAWLEY, Minn. (KVRR) – Winning a State Championship is not easy. After a full slate of regular season games, you must win your section and then defeat other teams that had the same challenge. When it is all said and done, only four Minnesota volleyball teams out of the over 200 schools get to call themselves state champions. That is the case for the 2024 Hawley Nuggets.

The commentator of the Class AA championship game on NSPN.Tv said, “Hawley seems like the type of town that the bus is going to come meet them at the city limits and drive them in. Fire trucks, police cars, anything that has a siren.”

That is exactly what took place when the team returned home.

When you win a state championship, it is hard to argue a better way to celebrate that accomplishment than just that. First responders welcoming you back to the school. In a gym full of Hawley community members Saturday night, the Nuggets celebrated their first ever volleyball state championship and first in any sport in decades.

“The emotions were so high,” said junior Annaka Johnson, who had the game-winning kill in the title game. “We were so excited and our dreams finally came true.”

Senior Emma Sannes gets to end her high school volleyball career as a champion.

“This is crazy,” said Sannes. “This is such a good feeling and you’re proud to be a part of this community. It wasn’t just us. We’re part of something bigger than ourselves and the whole community really helped push us to that win. To bring it back and celebrate with all of our fans here was just so nice to know that they’re still supporting us, even at 11 p.m. when we arrive an hour late [to the school].”

The tardiness can be forgiven for the champs. The road to number one was by no means an easy one. It took a five-set win against Wadena-Deer-Creek in the section semifinals. Then a win over Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton in the section championship, a team that had beaten them earlier in the year. Then in state, a five-set win over St. Croix Lutheran. Another five-set win in the semifinals versus Chatfield, another team that had beaten them in the regular season. Finally, the win over Southwest Christian in the championship to cap off their unbelievable season with a title.

“You know, they’ve run into a lot of five-setters throughout their career,” said head coach Kathleen Rustad. “You know, these girls, some of them have been on the court for a couple years, and I think last year our trademark was five-setter games. They’ve been there before, won some, lost some. Heartbreak does a little bit to you early on in the season. You learn. Hopefully you learn how to win, and it did us some good in the end.”

Sannes added on, “All the adversity we see early in the season leads up to, like, the wins in the end. We have to go through struggles in the beginning so that we know how to fight in the end and that’s really what helped us. We never let up. Our grit won. We just kept going.”

The theme Saturday night during the celebration was clear. The girls and coaches did not do it alone and credit the Hawley Nuggets faithful for all of their support.

“It feels so good,” said Johnson. “Our community, they’ve been so supportive the whole season. They’ve had our back and they really have brought the energy to every single game and we appreciate them so much because we wouldn’t have done this without them.”