<p>Competing against teams one and two age divisions higher than they, Northern Lights 16-1 wrapped up a third place finish in the 17/18 Club division at the 2018 January Thaw in Omaha, NE. Five Minnesota teams competed among the 20 squads in the combined 17/18 Club division as two rounds of pool play over two days would seed teams to their final bracket matches. Both NL 16-1 and 17-2 would advance directly to the Gold bracket semifinals where they would await their opponents from the quarterfinal round. NL 17-2 would get Nebraska ONE 18 Makai. The two teams would engage in a hard fought extra set match with Nebraska edging out NL 17-2 16-14 in set three to advance to the championship match. NL 16-1 faced off against Nebraska ONE 17 Titanium in their semifinal contest losing in straight sets 25-20, 25-13. The Northern Lights teams would drop to the third place match to face one another with the 16-1 squad claiming a straight set win, 25-20, 25-21. The five Minnesota North Country Region teams finished with the following final placement for the event:</p>
<p>3<sup>rd</sup> – Northern Lights 16-1 (5-2 record)</p>
<p>4<sup>th</sup> – Northern Lights 17-2 (6-2 record)</p>
<p>8<sup>th</sup> – Northern Lights 17 Black (4-4 record)</p>
<p>13<sup>th</sup> – Northern Lights 7 Red (5-2 record)</p>
<p>16<sup>th</sup> – Impact 17-1 (1-7 record)</p>
<p>The following athletes represent Northern Lights 16-1:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="30263" first="Sophia" last="Andersen"]</strong> 6’0 L/S | 2020 New Prague HS</li>
<li><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="71676" first="Courtney" last="Cahill"]</strong> 6’0 S/R | 2020 Woodbury HS</li>
<li><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="71662" first="Mackenzie" last="Close"]</strong> 6’0 R/MB | 2020 Southwest Christian HS</li>
<li><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="71655" first="Ellie" last="Dammann"]</strong> 6’0 MB/R | 2020 Waconia HS</li>
<li><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="71672" first="Serafina" last="Rivera"]</strong> 5’7 Lib/DS | 2020 Nova Classical Academy</li>
<li><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="57483" first="Bronwyn" last="Timperley"]</strong> 6’0 L/Lib | 2020 Northfield HS</li>
<li><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="71652" first="Sophia" last="Vogel"]</strong> 6’2 MB/R | 2020 Robbinsdale Armstrong HS</li>
<li><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="30259" first="Kali" last="Wolf"]</strong> 6’1 L/S | 2020 Waconia HS</li>
<li><strong>[player_tooltip player_id="10020" first="Halle" last="Wolfe"]</strong> 5’7 Lib/DS | 2020 Lakeville North HS</li>
<li><strong>Lauren Woodford</strong> 5’7 S/DS | 2020 Spring Lake Park HS</li>
</ul>
