At the end of the girls’ volleyball season, Park was seeded first in its Section. However, after the announcement of the seeding placement, Jefferson suddenly became number one in Section 6AAA.

Athletic Director Andy Ewald said for the past few years the coaches were using a computer system to determine tiebreakers for Section games. However, this year it was brought to the attention of the athletic department that the right criteria wasn’t being used.

“Originally when the seeding happened we were using one set of criteria for the seeding. It was brought to my attention that there actually was another part to the criteria that wasn’t given to me as the tournament manger,” Ewald said. “Using that criteria, that’s what moved us down to number two and from an ethical standpoint, that’s what we needed to do because the correct criteria wasn’t used for the first time.”

According to junior and captain Hannah Howell, the seeding ended up benefiting the team because they are facing an opponent they have previously beaten.

“It takes a lot of the pressure off and plus I think we have a better route to the Section Championship now. Instead of playing a team (we) already lost to once, we’ll (potentially) play two teams we’ve already swept in three sets,” Howell said. 

According to coach Whitney Meierotto-Simon, seeded second in their Section hasn’t affected the team in any way. 

“Everyone wants to be the number one seed and that’s great, but regardless we (have to) show up, concentrate on what we can control which is our side of the net, and that’s kind of been our focus,” Meierotto-Simon said.

Junior Kendall Coley said the placement will motivate the team to prove its desire to win Sections and possibly State. 

“It kind of gave (the team) hopefully a better road to State, but honestly it just motivated us more to show them that we deserve to be the number one seed,” Coley said.

According to Meierotto-Simon, the team is preparing for the upcoming Section games, and it’s the team’s focal point is bringing the girls back to the principles and working toward improving their weaknesses.

“We’ve had a lot of time to get back to the basics and really focus on (the) dialing on our services and our defense side of the ball. We’re pretty strong (on) offensive so we’ve gone back to what we’ve focused on at the beginning of the season, which is controlling the ball,” Meiertto-Simon said.

Park will face Bloomington Jefferson at the Section finals Nov. 2 at 12 p.m. at Bloomington Jefferson High School, according to Minnesota Volleyball Hub.