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Storm roll by Greyhounds in sweep

By Travis Rosenau 5 min read

SLEEPY EYE -- After starting the week with a pair of defeats, the Sleepy Eye Storm were more than ready to roar back against New Ulm Cathedral on Thursday.

With a clean game and consistent attack, the Storm rolled by the Greyhounds for a 25-21, 25-19, 25-9 sweep in Tomahawk Division volleyball action.

The Storm, now 6-7 overall and 3-2 in the Tomahawk, fell in four sets at home to Red Rock Central on Monday and were swept by Sleepy Eye St. Mary's at St. Mary's High School on Tuesday. But coming into Thursday's match with a Greyhounds team that has taken its lumps so far this season, Sleepy Eye head coach Sydney Geiger wasn't going to let her players come into Thursday's match overconfident.

"That's exactly what we talked about, we were focused on ourselves," Geiger said. "We had a rough couple games earlier this week that we had to figure it out ourselves and we had to come out and play the volleyball that we know how to play. That was our biggest focus -- playing volleyball, keeping it simple and playing the way we know how to play."

The Greyhounds fell to 1-15 overall and 0-4 in Tomahawk play.

Greyhounds head coach Becky Wilfahrt said good things happened when her players were able to get Sleepy Eye out of system, but too many errors plagued Cathedral's attack.

"We knew that Evers was kind of their big hitter, we talked about their passing game, we knew that if we could get them out of system -- and we did a good job of that at times with serving -- but we missed way too many," Greyhounds head coach Becky Wilfahrt said. "When our serves were in and we're aggressive, a lot of times we did get them out of system.

"That's what we wanted to do. It really came down to our missed hits. It wasn't really anything they were doing, it was unforced errors on our side of the net, which has kind of been the story of the year. They did a nice job of keeping the ball in play and kind of going to the same spots, but we just couldn't keep them all in play."

Callie Evers led Sleepy Eye with 13 kills, 10 digs and two aces, while Makayla Strong had seven kills, Jace Schauman had 13 digs and Kenley Jensen had 10 digs and two aces. Ava Kunkel had 25 set assists, 11 digs and two aces for Sleepy Eye, while Karly Wendinger added three blocks.

The Greyhounds were led by Jayde Altermatt, who had eight kills, three aces and six digs, while Isabelle Sprenger had four kills and Maddy Hazuka had three kills and six digs. Also for Cathedral, Ashlyn Hillesheim had seven set assists and six digs, while Brynn Wilfahrt had 11 digs and two aces.

Set 1 saw a back-and-forth start, with the Greyhounds getting Sleepy Eye on the ropes first with a 10-6 lead. The Storm rumbled back with a 5-0 run, however, taking an 11-10 lead after a kill by Evers. Kills by Sprenger and Altermatt got the Greyhounds back in front 12-11, but the Storm got a 3-0 run to lead 14-12 and force a Greyhounds timeout. The run saw three consecutive kills from Evers.

Moments later, both teams traded several points on errors, with six total errors in a row between the two teams putting Sleepy Eye up 18-14. An ace serve by Wendinger ended the error parade and had the Storm up 19-14. The Storm stretched their lead to 23-16 after a kill by Wendinger, but Cathedral hung around until another kill by Wendinger ended the set.

Set 2 saw a promising start for the Greyhounds as three early kills from Altermatt helped put them up 4-1. But the Storm got a 5-0 run that was capped off on a kill by Strong to lead 6-4. The Storm heated up after that and took a 15-7 lead and eventually led by double digits, 22-12. The Greyhounds got a late 4-0 run that saw two aces from Altermatt to keep them in the set, but a service error closed the set and put the Storm up 2-0 in the match.

Set 3 saw 15 errors by Cathedral, helping Sleepy Eye run away with a 25-9 win.

"[The first set], Jayde had a really strong set, but we just had a lot of unforced errors," Wilfahrt said. "We didn't have a lot of unforced errors in that set, and then all the sudden we got back to the last one, and again, it was missed hits. We've talked about how we don't necessarily have the power hitters that we had last year, so you've just got to be smarter instead of going up and swinging harder."

While Evers has led Sleepy Eye in many areas this season, Geiger said she was happy to see several others step up and contribute in different ways against Cathedral.

"Jace had some really good pick-ups in the back row that kept some of those plays going," Geiger said. "Karly had some really great blocks in the front tow that grabbed some of those points and that's momentum. And Kenley does some really great things in the front row, too, so it's really hard to just pick one [standout]. I think overall tonight was a really good team win for us."

Sleepy Eye is at Cedar Mountain on Tuesday for another Tomahawk matchup, while Cathedral is at a tournament in St. James on Saturday before returning home to host Wabasso in a Tomahawk match Tuesday.

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