It is rare to hear a high school athlete describe a practice as fun, exciting and intense.

Caledonia High School junior Amber Sorenson used all three adjectives while describing her team's volleyball practices.

The Warriors (26-4), who have made the most out of their practices and their matches, will play Cotter at 7 p.m. today as the No. 1 seed in the Section 1AA tournament.

"I think probably the biggest reason for our playing well is that our kids really work hard in practice," Caledonia coach Scott Koepke said. "They have great attitudes and they want to get better."

Sorenson, who leads the Three Rivers Conference in kills with 322, has played a key role in Caledonia's success.

"Amber is certainly a girl that you could probably call one of our go-to girls," Koepke said. "She's blossomed as an attacker this year and she's really playing strong at the net."

Senior Aly Meyer has come up big this season as well for the Warriors. Meyer has 172 kills on the season, but her presence is also felt on defense with 178 digs and 52 blocks.

"Aly would be another one of our go-to girls," Koepke said. "(She's) just a really hard working kid, we lean on her and go to her too."

Meyer and Sorenson also found athletic success last year as starters on the undefeated state champion Caledonia girls basketball team.

In fact, seven of the 15 members of the Warrior volleyball team were on the basketball team a year ago.

"I think that any time kids are champions at anything it motivates them to want to replicate that in anything they do," Koepke said. "When you are an undefeated state champion in basketball you set your goals high on anything."

Sorenson agreed.

"It was a lot of fun winning last year, it motivates us," said the 6-foot-2 outside hitter. "We think it would be fun to do that for volleyball, too."

Successful teams often run into trouble when underestimating opponents by looking ahead on the schedule, but don't expect Caledonia to look past winless Cotter.

"Our goal all year long was to win the section title. Many teams have that goal, but we just want to take it point-by-point and be as focused as we can," Koepke said.

After having two weeks off, Sorenson isn't looking ahead, she's just ready to get back on the court.

"We haven't really played in a long time so we're really excited to play (tonight)," Sorenson said. "We've been working a lot on taking it one game at a time. We're excited."