Energetic Wolverines sweep Chargers
NEW ULM — Sibley East earned an energetic 25-15, 25-20, 25-15 sweep over Minnesota Valley Lutheran Thursday, taking its second win in South Central Conference volleyball action.
“We played with great energy,” Sibley East head coach Chip Wolverton said. “We’ve struggled with that a little bit, but our energy was at a great, high level. So when we did have a moment where we didn’t make a couple plays, and our play tailed off, we didn’t go down into the depths, we were just able to get back because we had good energy. We were positive, people supporting each other, and that just lead us to make great plays.”
Wolverton added that his team did a great job of getting passes to the net and converting them into points.
“Our back-row serve-receive, free-ball passing was just great,” he said. “And that just makes it so much easier to play well.”
Sibley East saw a lot of success going from hitting balls from right to left or vice versa in the game, getting MVL defenders out of position.
“It’s an easy hit because you’ve got a lot of room there,” Wolverton said. “A lot of the times we’re in a position where we just want to keep the ball in instead of getting too cute with it, just use the line angle that we have. We do talk about that.
“Now I do like it when they see a line open and they take it down the line. But if we keep the ball in play, then we have a chance to get the point. We were efficient with our hitting, made some mistakes, but for the most part I think we hit the ball pretty well.”
Brianna Kettner let the Wolverines with 13 kills and 10 digs, while Rachelle Wear had nine kills and two blocks. Olivia Halquist had 25 set assists and eight digs, while Bridget Biron had 11 digs and an ace.
MVL head coach Johanna Kettner said Sibley East had a well-rounded match, putting all facets of its game together.
“Their hitters were relentless,” she said. “That’s for sure. And they put up a really big block. Their libero got a lot of good touches, and their serve-receive was pretty on par. So I’d say all around, they played a great game and gave us a run for our money.”
Jenna Bates led the Chargers with eight kills and six digs, while Olivia Hammer had three kills, 10 digs and an ace. Marley Schauer had two kills, seven digs, three aces and two blocks, and Avery Freier had 13 set assists, eight digs and two aces.
Set 1 started mostly evenly, with Sibley East taking the slight edge before going on a 5-0 run, led by kills by Wear, Lundgren and Abigail Kuehn, to take a 14-7 lead. Sibley East took the score to 17-10 before MVL called a timeout, then extended it all the way to 21-11 on a kill by Halquist to force another MVL timeout. A pair of kills by Brianna Kettner drew the game to a close.
Set 2 was MVL’s strongest set, with the team leading for a long stretch to begin the game.
“Like we’ve done with other games took getting back to the basics and running our offense as best we can gives us our best opportunity to be scoring points and getting inside outs,” coach Kettner said. “That’s what we’ve been focusing on the most, is getting back to the basics. That’s where we’re the most comfortable.”
MVL took a 7-2 lead to start the set, but Sibley East battled back to tie the game at 9. The Wolverines continued to roll, going up 15-11 before MVL changed back to tie the game at 15 on a kill by Hammer. Hammer got a block to take back the lead for the Chargers, and a kill by Schauer helped put MVL up 20-18, forcing a Sibley East timeout.
The Wolverines got back on track with a spike by Wear, leading to a 7-0 run to close out the set and give Sibley East the win.
The Wolverines carried that momentum into Set 3, taking a 9-2 lead to force an MVL timeout. Sibley East continued to roll, going up by as much as 22-8 on a kill by Brianna Kettner. MVL put together an effort to cut the lead to 22-14, led by two aces by Schauer, but Brianna Kettner finished out the set with a spike to end the match.
Sibley East (6-14, 2-7) hosts Maple River on Tuesday. MVL (3-16-2, 1-8) travels to St. Clair on Tuesday.