Western Christian sets their sights on a rematch of the 2021 Class 2A championship game after sweeping Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont
The Western Christian Wolfpack has a chance to rewrite history after Wednesday’s semifinals win over the Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont Rockets (25-16, 25-21, 25-11).
Just like last season, the Wolfpack will face Dike-New Hartford in the Class 2A championship match. However, they hope to have a much better showing this time around since they lost the match 3-0.
“Last year, we felt like we didn’t hit as well as we could,” Western Christian’s head coach Tammi Veerbeek said. “Our hitters, Stella [Winterfeld] and Abby [VerBurg], in particular, are playing at a higher level. We know that Dike-New Hartford is not going to make any mistakes, so we have to find the balance of staying aggressive, but not having unforced errors.”
The same could not be said for their performance on Wednesday night after getting their offense flowing early and often.
Overall, they ended the night with 43 kills compared to the Rockets' 23.
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Routinely making big plays in the first two sets, they saved their best play for the third set, where they just proved to be too much offensively.
At one point, they boasted a 22-9 lead over the Rockets in the set.
Noticing a gap in their defense, Veerbeek said that her team was able to exploit it as the match wore on.
“We scouted them and saw that they had a two-man serve receive,” Veerveek said. “We felt like we could tear that apart with our aggressive serving. We watched them last night and saw that they had some powerful outside hitters, but I think that we made them feel uncomfortable with our serving. We had them scrambling and I don’t think they could get into a flow.”
Their win was made official after senior Stella Winterfeld wrapped things up with her 16th kill of the night.
Now able to focus on getting redemption against Dike-New Hartford, Winterfeld said that this year, she and her teammates are ready to show off their growth.
“Last year, we did not play our best,” Winterfeld said. “This year, we are back and we are hungry. We are ready for this one.”
Dike-New Hartford sets up rematch in quest for three-peat
Ho hum.
Another year, another state championship match for the Dike-New Hartford High School volleyball team.And for the seventh time in the last 15 years, Western Christian stands in the Wolverines' path to a state championship.Top-ranked, two-time defending Class 2A state champion Dike-New Hartford disposed of fourth seed Hinton, 25-14, 25-20, 25-11 in a Class 2A state semifinal match on Wednesday.
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Dike-New Hartford (44-2) will play second seed Western Christian (42-5) in the 2A state title match at 4:45 p.m. Thursday.
Hinton bows out with a 27-3 record.
The Wolverines are poised to chase their 16th state championship in program history and a rare three-peat.
"It's a lot of fun year in and year out, just trying to get the pieces together and everything like that and seeing what's going to work for us this year. There are always new faces and the girls do a good job of wanting to continue that and working hard," Dike-New Hartford head coach Diane Harms said. "The girls work very, very hard. They are really good athletes. The work hard in all their sports. They make some plays happen just because they are athletic and they work hard."
Dike-New Hartford, after breezing through the opening set, found itself down, 11-6, in the second set.No reason for panic.
Harms just let the players work through the situation themselves. That's half the beauty in the game.
"They are smart enough to know to take a breath, compose and try to stop the run the other team is making," Harms said. "We do let them rely on themselves out there. We do have to remind them occasionally of the few things that they need to do. Most of the time they do a great job of making adjustments out there on the court."
Payton Petersen led the Wolverines with 18 kills, , while Ellie Knock had nine and Jadyn Petersen had eight.Bailey Boeve led Hinton with nine kills.
Neither Dike-New Hartford nor Western Christian will have to study films to know each others' tendencies on Thursday."That is a quality program," Harms said. "We always have very exciting matches when we play them. We are going to have to step it up when we play them and go after them. Every time we play them it's a great match."