Boys high school volleyball players from across Minnesota are hitting the gym Monday as the first official season sanctioned by the Minnesota State High School League begins with over 110 teams taking part statewide.
"The buzz is really strong right now, everybody is very excited to be official," said Krista Flemming, President of the Minnesota Boys Volleyball Coach's Association and Shakopee Boys Head Volleyball coach. "We've had a lot of great years before this, but there's something special about being Minnesota State High School League sanctioned. You can definitely tell there's a lot more excitement that goes around that as well."
The first official MSHSL season comes after 400 boys high school volleyball players spanning 22 schools started competing in 2018. Since then, the sport has continued to grow adding numbers each year with 81 schools and 2,381 players in 2024.
That first season in 2018 was the result of work done by former University of Minnesota head women's volleyball coach, Hugh McCutcheon, and Hall of Fame coach, Walt Weaver, who together founded boys volleyball in the state.
"They're the ones who really got everything up and started and wanted to know why there wasn't boys volleyball in Minnesota," Flemming said. "They then, by happenstance, got involved with Jenny Killkelly and myself, we were just two moms in Shakopee who had some connections to a couple of different things. We started working on all of the ideas and journey with them."
Through a steering committee, ideas, and hard work boys high school volleyball became reality for thousands of student-athletes across the state and the eventual MSHSL sanctioning in May 2023.
This season, thanks to the additional MSHSL resources, will include an expanded postseason.
"In the past, we've had a limited time get postseason happening because of gym space and things like that, so we reduced the number of matches that happened in the postseason and they were condensed," added Flemming. "This year now we'll have a regular postseason similar to all other sports, especially emulating girls high school volleyball."
The boys high school volleyball seasons runs March 17 through May 20. The postseason will run from May 20 through June 6 with the University of St. Thomas hosting this year's state tournament.
Shakopee won the 2024 state title in boys volleyball.
"We've been building our program and last year we were very fortunate to achieve our goas which was becoming state champion of the league. We're coming off a state championship, which is quite an act to follow. We're really excited about how we ended last year, but we have a lot of guys this year that are really aspiring to get us back to that same position."
While more than 110 schools are taking part this season, several have joined forces to compete this season with 85 to 87 varsity teams slated to compete across one single class.
While there were talks initially about what season to put boys high school volleyball, the spring season appears to be the longtime home for the sport.
"This is official, as part of the MSHSL board and committee that recommended it, there were a lot of details that went into deciding if fall or spring was best," Flemming said. "Spring is when college men's volleyball is played and this emulates and mirrors that season, just like how the girls mirrors the college season."
Officiating was another main reason for boys volleyball being a spring sport.
"If we had concentrated everything in the fall, we'd have a lack of officials that could cover everything especially with girls volleyball being so prominent. We're please to be here in the spring and excited to start things out. It's a little earlier than in the past, so that's new to people, but it's really exciting."