NEW ROCKFORD — A star sophomore on the 2024 Langdon Area/Munich volleyball team, which won the Class B state tournament, Aubrey Badding ruptured her Achilles tendon early in 2025.
She missed the rest of the season.
“I just tried to stay positive,” Badding said. “Because I knew that would be better than saying nothing and not helping my teammates. So I tried to help as much as possible on the bench.”
The middle blocker offered whatever support she could on the sideline while her teammates defended their title.
“She was a great leader last year,” longtime LA/M head coach Rich Olson said. “But it sucked having her on the bench.”
The team trudged on anyway. Hilary Haaven, a standout as an eighth grader, had an all-state first-team season in her freshman year. The Cardinals won a trio of five-set matches at the state tournament, securing their second consecutive state championship and sixth as a program, the most of any Class B/Division B team.
Badding was right in the middle of the celebration.
“It made me so excited because I knew we were only losing one player,” Badding said. “And we still had everybody coming back, and we were gonna be as strong as ever.”
She was right.
The Cardinals only graduated libero Raeleigh Ratzlaff, who’s now playing for Lake Region State College. The rest of the 2025 championship team — plus a healthy Badding — is back in 2026.
“I think we all get along great, and we just have fun every single game, win or lose,” Badding said. “If it’s a close match or not, we’re just having fun. There’s no negativity or anything.”
The Cardinals, though, haven’t done much losing.
In fact, they haven’t lost at all yet. Including Saturday tournaments, LA/M has won 20 matches without a loss. The Cardinals did one have one tie against Edgeley/Kulm/Montpelier in a state semifinal rematch. In eight regular matches, including four district contests, they are yet to lose a set. They’ve beaten some Division A teams, too — including No. 2 Oak Grove, No. 3 Carrington (twice) and No. 4 Valley City.
“They’re a very loose bunch to be around. They have fun every day,” Olson said. “I mean, they come in the gym; from minute one when they’re warming up, you can tell that they love being in the gym. They love playing volleyball. They just love the sport and they love the camaraderie with each other each and every day. And for me to manage it, I love that part about it because it keeps us loose in every situation.
“But I also have to challenge them. And sometimes I think they wonder, ‘Coach, we just won 3-0 and we dominated,’ yet I come in there with things that we need to get better at. And that’s my job as a coach, is to keep challenging them to become the best they can be.”
LA/M hasn’t lost a set in a regular-season, non-tournament match since Oct. 29, 2024.
This year, the Cardinals have outscored opponents 1,156-748. Throughout their 19-0-1 start, they’ve lost just six sets, all in Saturday tournaments. They’re the unanimous No. 1 as ranked by the North Dakota Associated Press Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.
This is a team that swept all three matches of last year’s region tournament.
So what is there to improve on?
“You’re always looking at the little things,” Olson said. “Are we communicating right? Are we seeing what we need to see? We’re working on vision all the time. Vision is a big part of the game, and if you see it quicker, you say it quicker. If you see it, you’re gonna communicate better. And so we’re working on that all the time, no matter what the score is, whether it’s lopsided or not. I feel like you can learn something from every experience. And we just keep trying to get better. That’s the challenge, is when you’re ranked high, don’t take anything for granted. And that we’re not a finished product. … There’s things we’re gonna find on video that we can get better at.”
Badding’s return to the court has made a noticeable difference, taking this team from great to even greater.
“I’m so happy to be playing again with my team and just having fun out there,” she said.
There was some rust upon returning.
But she’s gotten back into the flow. Badding is second on the team in kills, with 166 entering this week — good for 3.6 per set.
“It was hard to come back right away,” Badding said. “But I feel like [I’m] just slowly getting there and getting the hang of everything again.”
There’s also been a change to Badding’s position on the court. Before her injury, she was a middle blocker. Now she’s an outside hitter, with the nearly-six-foot Taya Feist having established her role in the middle.
“I really like it,” Badding said. “I get to hit more. There’s more opportunities out there, and I get to serve-receive more. So I really like it.”
The transition has been seamless.
“We want to be able to get her the ball a little bit more out there,” Olson said. “And that’s the nice part about our roster, is we have some flexibility in what we can do, and we knew that going in. We weren’t really sure during the summer where we were gonna put players, and we’re still kind of trying to figure that out. But it’s a fun bunch to be around and we just have a blast every day.”
Badding makes LA/M’s offense that much more dynamic. Now a senior, her patience while sitting on the bench last year is paying off.
“I’m sure she’s more excited than anybody to be out there because she had to go through a season of learning from the bench,” Olson said. “And I think she did. I mean, she learned from watching some of the things that can help her become a better player. And so even going into the first parts of the season, you could tell she was a better player than when she finished, when she got hurt. And so yeah, just having another girl that can terminate for you is always huge.”
The Cardinals are still led by Munich’s Haaven, who surpassed 1,000 career kills and digs as a freshman. Haaven is now a sophomore, in her third year as a varsity starter. She leads the team in kills once again, with more than 200 already. She’s averaging about 4.5 kills per set. Haaven also has over 200 digs this season.
“She’s amazing,” Badding said of her teammate. “I love being with her because you know she’s never having an off-night. You can always count on her, and if she picks you up, you’ll have a better game, and we just feed off of each other.”
Olson thinks Haaven has gotten even better.
“Her vision’s gotten better,” Olson said. “She sees the game so well. Her footwork has gotten better, and just her overall knowledge of the game has continued to improve. She’s far from a finished product. As good as she is, the beautiful thing about Hilary is she’s driven to be the best she can be. And she’s never gonna feel like she can’t improve. And she’s always gonna work hard to be the best version of herself.”
Feist, now a junior, is third on the team in kills with 85 kills entering the week. Another junior, Emma Hall, is fourth in kills with 61. Even the Cardinals’ setter, junior Kemi Morstad, has 20 kills.
“That’s been the strength of our team all season — just everybody contributing,” Olson said. “It’s a different girl leading us in kills each night, it seems like.”
Morstad, who surpassed 1,000 career assists as a sophomore, has already tallied more than 400 this year.
The one position LA/M needed to fill this season, aside from figuring out a spot for Badding, was libero. In the wake of Ratzlaff’s graduation, sophomore Mya Swanson is now playing there.
Swanson entered this week second on the team in digs with 164 — behind only Haaven.
“It’s a work in progress for her, too,” Olson said. “She’s really improving. It seems like, week by week, she makes improvements to her game and her passing accuracy and digging ability. And a lot of that’s vision, too. She’s not used to playing the libero position, and she’s only done it for about a month now. But I see a bright future there as a possible libero for quite a while. But I also see her as a possible hitter. So you never know with her. She’s another girl on our roster that has position flexibility, and she can do a lot of different things for us. So that’s a huge luxury to have as a coach.”
Junior Meggy Hetletved has collected a lot of digs as well, with 148 at the start of the week.
The Cardinals have consistently served it well, too, with more than 150 aces as a team. Haaven has the most, with 36, while Hall is second with 30.
It’s all added up to an even more dominant version of the LA/M volleyball dynasty.
“We want to keep doing what we’re doing, and keep winning and having a great season,” Badding said. “And have fun with our teammates.”
Key dates
Oct. 6: Langdon Area/Munich @ Benson County (Maddock)
Oct. 20: Langdon Area/Munich @ North Star (Cando)
Oct. 29 – Nov. 2: District 4 tournament (Lakota)
Nov. 9-12: Region 2 tournament (Park River)
Nov. 19-21: State tournament (Bismarck)