FARGO, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – Back on Saturday, the Langdon Area-Edmore/Munich (LAEM) Cardinals proved to be too much for the Oakes Tornadoes. LAEM defeated Oakes in four sets (25-10, 19-25, 25-21, 25-19) to win its 4th state volleyball championship in school history.

LAEM used a balanced attack to hand the Tornadoes their second championship loss in as many years. Morgan Freije, Lexis Olson and Callie Ronningen all finished with a team high 12 kills.

Oakes, on the other hand, did not find that same balance. Oakes’ Nicole Schmitz finished her last match as a Tornado with 17 kills, but the second highest were Shayla Novak and Allison Jepson with three kills each.

The first set was a lopsided 25-10 LAEM win, but the remaining three sets were much closer. Oakes took advantage of some LAEM miscues in the second set to notch their lone set victory of the evening.

LAEM was too much in the last two sets. The 4th set saw LAEM use a 6-0 run to go up 24-17 and eventually win on an Oakes service error.

Six seniors played their last match for Oakes (Claire Wagner, Novak, Aubrei Steiner, Jepson, Schmitz and Jaida Seyer) on Saturday and capped off successful careers that saw two 2nd place finishes at state.

In some good news, Oakes was represented extremely well in the awards category. Nicole Schmitz won Senior Athlete of the Year and Head Coach Sheri Christensen won Coach of the Year. Schmitz was added to the All Tournament Team alongside teammates Claire Wagner and Sadie Hansen.