Trio of seniors end high school volleyball career for Vikings

COLFAX — Just three seniors were on the roster when the Colfax volleyball team began their season in August but all three of those seniors were starters and made sure the Vikings retained their Dunn-St. Croix Conference title for the third consecutive year.

Lakken Meredith was a member of all three of those championship teams and was also a big part of the team winning a regional title her junior year. After missing her freshman season with a torn ACL, Meredith appeared to be jinxed as she had to deal with an ankle injury to start her sophomore year. She finally got healthy however, and played in 23 matches for the Vikings, finishing second in assists with 288. She pretty much took over the setter spot her junior and senior seasons, leading the team with 846 assists as a junior and 823 this year for a total of 1,957. This more then likely is a school record but you need to keep in mind teams play a lot of weekend tournaments that  are usually two or three set matches while the Vikings also won several conference matches in just three sets which cuts down on player stats,But Meredith did a lot more for the team then setting as she led in ace serves this year with 71 to go with 74 a year ago,and saved plenty of points with 650 digs including 321 as a senior. At the net, she did more then set her teammates up, slamming 219 total kills while blocking or assisting on blocks 74 times. The Vikings were 58-48 in those three years and  were 25-1 in conference games. Meredith was named to the All Conference First Team as a junior and not only made the First Team this season, she was selected as the Conference Player of the Year for her versatility. She would like to continue playing volleyball at the college level.

Marianne Scharlau was a two year starter for the Vikings and made her presence known in the middle of the net both seasons. This year she led the team in kills with 318 which put her second in the conference, and with last year’s 116, she had a total of 434. She also plugged up the middle by denying plenty of opponents shots (many with Meredith at her side), and led the team in blocks with 108 this year to go with 69 as a junior. In her first year of being in the serving rotation, Scharlau smacked 30 aces and came up with 123 digs, including 75 this season. She was named to the All Conference First Team this year and she would also like to play at the collegiate level.

Serena Secraw displayed the true meaning of perseverance after working her way up from the junior varsity by playing on it three years. She did see action in a few games as a junior but found her groove this season as an outside hitter at the net and a digger from the back. Secraw ended up as the second leading spiker for the team with 129 kills, and was fourth in digs with 278. She also sent over 20 ace serves and had 13 assists and five blocked shots. For her efforts,she was selected  Second Team All Conference.

“These three girls were a huge part of our success,” coach Pam Meredith said. “When we got behind in a match, these seniors were the ones who picked the team up, either verbally or by making a big play. Lakken fought adversity her first two years of high school and came back to have a fantastic career, Marianne really just started playing in middle school and improved tremendously from her sophomore to her junior season. With the big group of seniors we had last year, Serena knew she wasn’t going to get a lot of varsity time but she was determined to make up for that her senior year and she had an outstanding season,” she added.