Amy Pearson
NEW ULM — After six years at the helm of the Minnesota Valley Lutheran varsity volleyball program, Amy Pearson has decided to step down as head coach.
She exits the program with a 24-24 Tomahawk Conference mark and a 71-72 overall record.
“Coach Pearson did an outstanding job teaching and challenging her young ladies to reach beyond their comfort zones on the volleyball court, in the classroom, in life, and more importantly in their faith life,” MVL Activities Director Craig Morgan said in a press release.
Amy Pearson said that she originally was going to coach at least five years at MVL but decided to stay another season while her three-sport athlete son, Ben, completes his senior year at the school.
While she loves coaching and the players returning next year, she said the timing was right for her as the team will benefit from a smooth transition period to new head coach Miranda Maasz.
“We’ve always had in our mind that this would be my last year, and it worked out beautifully,” Amy Pearson said. “Last spring, MVL was calling for a new social studies teacher, so they put volleyball coach on that call. So Miranda Maasz accepted that position, so this was a great transition year for us.
“She was our assistant coach this year, we team-taught the team, she spent a lot of time jotting down, ‘What went great? What would I change?,’ asked tons of questions, so she is just ready to take the bull by the horns and step into that role next year and make the program her own.”
Amy Pearson’s first two years at MVL, her first years spent as a high school head volleyball coach, couldn’t have gone much better when it came to getting the Chargers back to the top of the conference.
After a 12-14 finish for MVL in 2017, Amy Pearson saw immediate success in her first year as head coach in 2018. The team finished 21-5 overall that year and went 7-1 in the conference, which was good enough to finish second in the conference behind Wabasso.
In 2019, the Chargers had their winningest season of volleyball in school history with a 24-5 overall record. They also won the Tomahawk Conference title with an 8-0 conference mark.
During those first two seasons, the Chargers had success from all over the court. But one of the best one-two punches in the area at that time came in the form of setter Maddie Pearson and middle hitter Mara Weisensel.
Maddie Pearson, Amy Pearson’s daughter, ended up finishing her senior year of volleyball in 2019 as the school’s all-time leader in set assists with 1,847.
“Truthfully, being able to coach Maddie was a highlight and a real joy for me,” Amy Pearson said. “She is a super hard worker herself, but not only that, she would get the other girls into the gym, too. I wouldn’t even have to say that we’re having an open gym or a Monday morning practice before a Monday night game, she would be, like, ‘Girls, we’re going to be there.’ It was a great team opportunity between the two of us, just getting the most out of those girls. And just so much talent and desire and dedication out of those girls … they were very talented themselves.”
Collecting many of the kills from Maddie Pearson’s assists during that time was Weisensel. Weisensel finished her senior season of volleyball in 2019 with a single-season school record of 460 kills. That final year pushed her career kills total to 917, another school record.
While Amy Pearson said being able to coach her daughter was a big reason for taking the head coaching spot in 2018, she also knew the other girls well dating back to coaching them in Junior Olympic volleyball.
“One of my main goals as a volleyball coach is to get the fullest potential out of girls — so, not leaving anything on the table,” Amy Pearson said. “And I think that after my first year of coaching, one of the seniors who had gone through a losing season as a sophom*ore and then a so-so season as a junior, then to win 20 games as a senior that first year, her end-of-the-season comment to me was, ‘Boy, coach, you got way more out of me than I ever thought possible.’ To me, that was just the highest compliment to know that the girls realized that they could push themselves harder than they had been and that effort would be rewarded with the wins that we thought.”
COVID-19 shortened a 2020 season that saw the Chargers go 3-9 before the 2021 season saw an 11-14 finish. After MVL finished 2-24 in 2022, the Chargers took a positive step forward this past season and finished 10-15.
While it’s not easy to continue producing 20-win campaigns, the Chargers did that in back-to-back seasons during Amy Pearson’s time as head coach. And in her last season as head coach, her team worked hard to bounce back from a rough 2022.
“This year was a fun year because we had a solid core of seven seniors returning, but everyone else was brand new to the varsity level,” she said. “So, on the plus side, the seniors were able to really turn around the season we had last year into a much more successful season this year. They can be proud of the work that they put in, but then they also helped transition for next year’s team because we started a few freshmen, sophom*ores were in the starting rotation, we have a junior who will be coming back as our lone rising senior next year.
“They did a great job of preparing them to step into their roles and those younger players got substantial playing time this year so that they will be ready to step up next year. I challenged this freshmen class to say, ‘Hey, you guys have stats in the stat books right now, be the first girl to get to 1,000 in digs or kills.’ So, we’ll see if those freshmen rise to the challenge and put in a lot of work over the next summer and offseason. I know a few of them are playing JO with the Mankato Attack and also our spring teams, too.”
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