Greyhounds surge back in Set 1, earn sweep over Cougars
Cathedral 1 win from conference title share
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MORGAN -- Despite a 10-point deficit in Set 1, New Ulm Cathedral remained calm, cool and collected on its way to a crucial Tomahawk Conference volleyball sweep of Cedar Mountain on Tuesday night.
The Greyhounds topped the Cougars 26-24, 25-22, 25-20.
The win improved the Greyhounds to 18-4 overall on the year and 6-1 in the conference. They are now just a Thursday win over Sleepy Eye away from earning a share of the conference title.
Cathedral hosts Sleepy Eye at 7 p.m. Thursday.
Sleepy Eye St. Mary's guaranteed itself a share of the conference with a sweep over Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop on Tuesday night at home, finishing 7-1 in the conference.
Cedar Mountain dropped to 19-8 overall with the loss and finished with a 6-2 conference mark.
Megan Haala led the Greyhounds with 14 kills, 13 digs and four aces, while Sydnee Helget had 14 kills and 20 digs. Lily Brennan added eight kills and 23 digs for Cathedral, while Annie Edwards had 40 set assists and 10 digs.
The Cougars were led by Nadia Meyers' 18 set assists and six kills, while Hailey Hollar had 24 digs.
Hungry to make an impact and grab a guaranteed share of the conference title Tuesday night, Cedar Mountain pulled out to a 19-9 lead in the first set after an ace from Meyers and a kill from Aubrey Steffl.
But Cathedral stayed in the game with an 8-2 run to trail 21-17 and force a Cedar Mountain timeout. The Cougars still looked to have the set in control after kills from Hollar and Meyers put them up 24-20, but the Greyhounds ended the set with a 6-0 run, getting an ace from Jenna Hotovec and a block from Haala to end the set victorious.
"They have the experience and I know they know they can do it," Cathedral head coach Becky Wilfahrt said. "They started really tentative and they kind of got sucked into playing the game that we knew Cedar Mountain wanted to play. So they didn't do anything that surprised us, we just didn't respond like we should have. Once we started focusing on our game and our side of the floor, we just played much better."
The Cougars opened the second set with a 4-0 advantage before a 4-0 run by Cathedral had the Greyhounds up 11-8, prompting a Cougars timeout. Back-to-back aces from Haala and a kill from Helget had the Greyhounds up 16-10 to burn Cedar Mountain's last timeout of the set.
Cedar Mountain cut its deficit to 22-21 late on a block from Meyers, but Hotovec responded with a block of her own and an ace serve to give the Greyhounds a 24-21 lead. The Cougars added one more point after a violation before the Greyhounds ended the set with a kill from Haala.
Cedar Mountain never led the third set as Cathedral took a 10-5 lead on a kill from Haala. Trailing by 5 again later in the set, the Cougars got back within a point, 19-18, but the Greyhounds remained poised and ended the set and match on a kill from Helget.
While sharing is caring, St. Mary's will have to be Sleepy Eye fans Thursday if it wants sole possession of the conference crown. In order to earn a share of the conference title, Cathedral will need to take down another tough team in the Indians.
"They want to go to their middles," Wilfahrt said of Sleepy Eye. "So kind of the same thing that we did here, same thing that we did against St. Mary's. We've got to get them out of system. It's hard to set your middles when you're out of system. So we've got to serve and hit aggressively and we've got make sure we've got that block closed. So if we can do those two things, that's going to force them to go elsewhere with the ball."
Cedar Mountain has one more regular season match on the road against MACCRAY on Tuesday.