New Life Academy of Woodbury beat West Central in five sets in a Class A state volleyball quarterfinal Thursday night at the Xcel Energy Center.

The Eagles emerged from the back-and-forth match with a 25-22, 16-25, 18-25, 25-18, 15-12 victory.

No. 4-seeded New Life Academy takes on the top-seeded Russell-Tyler-Ruthton in the semifinals at 1 p.m. Friday at the Xcel Energy Center. Russell-Tyler-Ruthton swept unseeded Pine River-Backus in their quarterfinal.

Momentum looked to be in the hands of West Central after decisive wins in the second and third sets put the Knights just a set away from victory.

But New Life wouldn’t be put down so easily. In the fourth set, 6-foot-2 senior Makenzie Anderstrom and 6-foot sophomore Marisa Michaelis made getting the ball over the net tough for West Central and regained the momentum for the Eagles, who completed the comeback by winning the fifth set.

New Life head coach Dede Lawson said that this year being the team’s second time at the state tournament played a role in pulling out the victory in a game where they expected a tough battle.

“This is our second year here, and West Central’s first year,” she said. “I think that gave us a little edge, that we had quite a few players that have been here last year and played. And so I think that helped them be a little more relaxed and have a little more experience in that moment, and they handled that a little bit better.”

“As a team, the nerves weren’t as high; it was more excitement,” junior Makenna Lilly said. “Since a lot of the lineup has been here before, we were able to calm those younger girls down, I think, and that was good for them, to see that someone else was calm.”

Players said the pressure of going into the final set with the season on the line is a moment they relish.

“It was unreal,” Lilly said. “These are the moments you want as an athlete. These comeback moments, these big-time plays that you want. I think our team overall is just happy that we pushed through that fourth set, and then it’s like, ‘We want this,’ and then we just acted like it.”

Senior captain Addi Ross said that in the past few weeks, the team has made an effort to not look too far down the road.

“Just these last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about taking things one step at a time, one point at a time,” Ross said. “I don’t think our team was even thinking about how this is the fifth set, we need 15 points to win this. We just wanted to take it one step at a time, one point at a time. Everyone there was so determined to do their job.”

Related Articles

State volleyball: Caledonia sweeps Concordia Academy in Class 2A quarterfinal

State volleyball: Mahtomedi falls 3-0 to hard-serving Delano in Class 3A quarterfinal

State volleyball: Stillwater’s run ends in semifinals as New Prague moves on to Class 4A final

East Metro volleyball player of the year: Nova Classical Academy’s Ava Ball

Wisconsin volleyball: St. Croix Falls tops Cuba City to move into Division 3 state final

When the White Sox hired Tony La Russa, I told myself, “It can’t get worse.” After last year’s 81-win season of lethargy, I told myself, “It can’t get worse.” After last summer’s dysfunction, defined by a literal shooting in the ballpark, the hiring of Chris Getz as general manager and 101 losses, I told myself, “It can’t get worse.”

Naive is the word that comes to mind. I yearn for those days.

On Thursday, the Sox hit rock bottom. The Detroit Tigers announced they hired Jason Benetti, beloved White Sox TV play-by-play man. After eight wonderful years with the South Siders, Benetti, like many Sox fans, is moving on.

The foundation to any sustainable partnership is an ability to recognize when you have a good thing going and then committing to it. For the past eight years, Benetti was the best thing the Sox had going, and he committed deeply to them. Despite the terrible product on the field for six of those years, Benetti’s observational humor, love for the game and its characters, and ability to draw out nuggets of analysis from color analyst Steve Stone made the White Sox appointment television. Hanging out with Benetti made my day better. He made a terrible baseball team lovable because he is lovable.

Benetti grew up a die-hard White Sox fan in the south suburbs. He loves Chicago. He loves Sox fans. He had his dream job, and he excelled at it. Indeed, a great opportunity awaits him in Detroit. Three years ago, the Sox almost hired A.J. Hinch, the Tigers manager, but Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf torpedoed the process and chose his friend La Russa instead.

Scott Harris, Detroit’s head of baseball operations, once Theo Epstein’s protégé with the Cubs, has an experienced and shrewd baseball mind. Unlike the Sox, Detroit is moving on up in the world. Despite all of this, I imagine Benetti feels a sense of loss leaving Chicago. The franchise not only failed to build a winning team, but it also failed to fully recognize his brilliance.

The Sox didn’t hold up their end of the partnership. Benetti’s love for a job, a team and a city were no match for the dysfunction bred by Reinsdorf. For 43 years, Reinsdorf has been defined by a litany of mistakes and one magical 2005 season. After his worst season, 2023, losing Benetti will hurt most. The White Sox lost their best fan.

As MLB researcher Sarah Langs often writes, “Baseball is the best.” It’s the best because of people like Benetti — storytellers who can detail the game’s small wonders and rise to its defining moments, from describing a young fan in right field with ice cream slathered over her face to a bat flip by a young unburdened shortstop from Alabama, his full career ahead of him.

As I remember the Benetti era, one moment will always remain with me: turning on the television to see an empty stadium on opening day on July 24, 2020, four months into COVID-19. The sight felt like a warm blanket. Then I heard Benetti’s voice, which brought a tear to my eye.

“White Sox baseball is back. Every statue, every nook, every cranny, every seat, every hedge, every cloud, every angle to look at a cloud, every mural, every blade of grass is still here and ready for you to watch our national pastime from. We wish you were here. We really do.”

Thank you, Jason Benetti — for being there, not just with us, but for us. We wish you were here, too. We’re also proud of you for moving on. Maybe it’s a lesson for all of us.

Charlie Stanton is a speechwriter based in Oakland, California, and a proud Chicago native.

Despite what you may have heard, Frankie Valli isn’t ready to say goodbye.

“You know? Everybody is thinking that it is my last tour,” says the 89-year-old New Jersey native, who now calls Southern California home. “And I don’t know when my last tour is, personally. If I can continue to do this, as long as I’m not feeling ill, I’ll do it.”

Perhaps some of the confusion comes from this tour’s title – The Last Encores – which definitely sounds like something that would be used to mark a last hurrah. Yet, Valli says he’s not waving farewell to touring, but rather his intention is simply dial back some on the road work.

“After this year, we will slow down on the amount of things that we do,” he says. “Instead of 70 or 80 or 90 things a year, we will probably cut it down to like 30 or 35.”

Yet, why wait for future tours when you still see Valli on this one? The famed singer and his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group, the Four Seasons, are set to perform on Nov. 12 at the San Jose Civic.

The San Jose date is the chance to see a legendary performer whose recording career now stretches a mind-blowing 70-plus years, dating back to when the singer taped his first single — “My Mother’s Eyes” — under the name “Frankie Valley” in 1953.

“It’s been really great,” Valley says of a career that has spanned eight complaints. “I have no complaints.”

After making his solo debut, Valli’s would soon help form the Newark, New Jersey, R&B/rock act the Four Lovers, “which was basically the same personnel (as the Four Seasons) except for Bob Gaudio.”

Gaudio was busy at the time with his own band, the Royal Teens, which delivered the smash hit “Short Shorts” in 1958. Once Valli and Gaudio eventually met — and started collaborating together — it would prove to be a true game changer for both men.

“Bob and I got to know each other and we spent some time (together),” Valli says. “He played me songs that he had written and I was blown away. I said, ‘Why aren’t you recording these songs?’”

Together, the two men would help fashion some of the most memorable pop songs of the early ‘60s – including “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man” and “Rag Doll” — all No. 1 hits for the Four Seasons that featured Valli on vocals and were written (or co-written) by Gaudio.

Related Articles

The Elkina sisters display their piano prowess for Schubert Club audiences

Irish singer/songwriter Hozier to play Xcel Energy Center in August

Country star Kenny Chesney books return trip to U.S. Bank Stadium in May

Minnesota Opera’s ‘Cruzar La Cara De La Luna’ speaks to the Mexican immigration experience

Green Day plan August return to Target Field with the Smashing Pumpkins and Rancid

The Four Seasons — whose story is the basis for the award-winning jukebox musical “Jersey Boys” — continued to score hits in the ‘70s, including the chart-topper “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night).” Valli also experienced sizable solo success with the No. 1 hits “My Eyes Adored You” and “Grease.” While the former stands as one of the greatest romantic songs of that decade, it would be the latter that really introduced the singer to a whole new generation of fans.

“I had a call from Barry Gibb and he said, ‘I wrote a song and it’s the title song to a movie called ‘Grease.’ I think it’s perfect for you,’” Valli remembers. “He sent it over and I couldn’t have agreed more. I loved it from the very moment I heard it.”

That last line probably describes a lot of fans’ reactions to hearing those signature Valli tunes for the first time. Now, decades later, those songs remain so special to longtime listeners — and Valli believes he knows the reason why.

“The songs had important placement in people’s lives — whether they used a song when they were getting married, a song like ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,’ or a breakup or a variety of different things,” he says.

Valli just keeps right on serving up those classics to eager ears, month after month, year after year. Trying to calculate just how many times he’s sung a track like, say, “Sherry” over the decades would be a tall task indeed.

How does Valli stay motivated to keep crooning these familiar favorites after all this time?

“I think it’s a motivation that is very closely connected to you,” he says. “It’s like, ‘How do you get motivated by watching your kids grow up?’”

The key, of course, is putting the audience first. Once a performer does that then the motivation to bring an old tune back to life yet once again should come naturally.

“You are not doing it for you,” Valli says. “You are doing it for them.”

Of course, time does take its toll on all earthly things. So, it’s fair to wonder how Valli’s famed falsetto is doing in 2023 — 70 years after releasing his first single.

“The voice is hanging in,” Valli says. “You have to work at it and do a lot of rehearsing — a lot of vocal exercises. It’s like body building and lifting weights. If you lay off it too long, it’s like starting out all over again.”

Bay Area fans will have the golden opportunity to hear that legendary voice one more time when Valli visits the San Jose Civic. And they might think twice before passing up the chance, even though Valli says he has no intentions of this being his last tour.

“I’m going to try my hardest to not make it my last,” he says. “But even it was, it’s been some of the most wonderful years of my life.”