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Rabbits respond with sweep of Greyhounds

By Travis Rosenau 7 min read

NEW ULM -- After being swept by a tough Renville County West team on Monday night, the Wabasso Rabbits were looking to take the positives from that defeat into their Tomahawk Division match with New Ulm Cathedral on Tuesday.

That worked out for the Rabbits as they earned a sweep of their own, downing the Greyhounds 25-19, 25-16, 25-18 at Cathedral High School.

The Rabbits, who moved to 7-8 overall and 3-3 in the Tomahawk with the win over Cathedral, played well with RCW on Monday before falling off in the third set to lose 25-23, 25-22, 25-13. RCW moved to 14-2 on the year with the win over Wabasso.

"All of our girls are [younger] and everybody's just been working really hard all season long and it's nice to see," Wabasso head coach Barb Johnson said. "[Monday] playing RCW, a highly-ranked team overall and we played so well against them. Then [Tuesday] coming in and being able to win in three, that was really big for us. Just with being as young as we are, sometimes we lose focus a little bit, and today I was just really happy to see us finish it in three."

The Greyhounds, meanwhile, fell to 2-19 overall and 0-5 in the Tomahawk. For head coach Becky Wilfahrt, Tuesday's loss was a matter of the team being unable to connect good passes with good hits consistently.

"The first set we passed really well, we just had too many missed hits, we had a lot of hitting errors in that first set," she said. "We cleaned that up in the second set and then our passing wasn't there. So it's just being able to put it all together. Hitting errors went down and then serving errors went up and passing. We had a lot of nice blocks, we had a lot of nice touches, kept some rallies alive and then just miscommunication at times killed us."

The Rabbits were led by Kenley Guetter, who had eight kills, 13 digs and a solo block, while Melany Kramer had eight kills and a solo block and Ava Samyn had six kills. Britta Brand added 16 digs and an ace for Wabasso, while Lanna Janeiro-Dolan had 17 set assists and an ace and Cassie Bliss had 12 digs, two aces and a solo block.

Maddy Hazuka led the Greyhounds with seven kills, 13 digs and two solo blocks, while Jayde Altermatt had seven kills, seven digs and a solo block. Eighth-grader Kinley Berdan stepped in the setter role for the Greyhounds and had 11 set assists and 11 digs, while Ashlyn Paszkiewicz had 10 digs and Ashlyn Hillesheim had nine digs.

The Greyhounds took an early 4-1 lead thanks to a kill by Altermatt and a trio of Wabasso errors, but the Rabbits rallied with a 7-0 run to lead 8-4 and force a Cathedral timeout after a block from Bliss and a kill from Samyn.

The Rabbits stretched that run into an 8-0 run out of the timeout before an attack error got Cathedral on the board again. The Greyhounds woke up midway through the set with a 6-1 run to trail 13-12, getting three kills from Hazuka and a kill from Isabelle Sprenger during the run. Moments later, the Greyhounds got a 3-0 run to tie the game at 16-all. A 5-1 Wabasso run followed and forced another Cathedral timeout and while a kill from Brynn Wilfahrt kep the Greyhounds alive late, kills from Bliss and Cendyll Daub ended the set in Wabasso's favor.

Set 2 saw the Greyhounds up 3-2 early after two kills from Altermatt and a kill from Brynn Wilfahrt, but that was about all the Greyhounds could put together consistently on offense as the Rabbits jumped in front 15-5 moments later thanks to a pair of Kramer kills and a handful of Cathedral errors. The Rabbits led by as much as 11 in the set and put it away on a kill by Guetter.

Set 3 again saw Cathedral out to an early 4-1 lead thanks to three Wabasso errors and an ace by Hazuka, but the Rabbits responded with a 4-0 run to take a 5-4 lead. The Greyhounds took the lead back at 9-8 after an Altermatt kill and an attack error, but a Cathedral error and a kill from Kramer gave the Rabbits a lead back they ended up keeping. The Greyhounds got within a point after that on two different occasions, but a kill by Samyn put the Rabbits up 19-15 and forced a Greyhounds timeout.

"I thought we did a good job of keeping with [RCW on Monday]," Samyn said. "Facing a tough team really helped prepare us for [Cathedral] and to keep us strong."

The Greyhounds had three late errors and a violation to help steer the Rabbits closer to the finish line and a kill by Bliss ended the set and night.

Much like the Rabbits, who don't have any seniors on their team, Coach Wilfahrt said she was still happy with some of the things she saw on Tuesday from her young team, which has just one senior.

"We have some younger girls that are stepping in and doing some nice things," she said. "Kinley set for us tonight, she picked up a lot of digs, she led us in set assists and had double-digit digs tonight as well. So that's nice to see. Jayde swung well tonight, I thought probably one of her better nights swinging, didn't have a lot of errors. [Maddy] had some nice kills in there. Just learning that ball placement sometimes is much more important than trying to hit hard and playing to your strengths and understanding what they are.

"So, yeah, we have some younger players. Sprenger did a nice job blocking up at the net, too. So that's a lot of sophomores and younger girls coming up that are starting to do some good things. They have stretches like you saw in the first set where they're competitive and they play with it and everything's clicking and you've just gotta put it all together."

While Wabasso is another team that is used to being near the top of the Tomahawk, Johnson said she's overall happy with where her team is at this year despite giving away a couple matches.

"I would say we probably lost a couple that we shouldn't have, and they were close," she said. "We lost to Springfield last week and had a two-game lead against them and shouldn't have let that one go. In our home tournament, we lost to BOLD in three sets, also probably shouldn't have let that one go.

"Otherwise, I think the girls are doing really well. We've played some really tough competition, we've played RTR and CMC and RCW and we've held our own against them and I think that's really great for our girls. This week, one of our regular starters is hurt and isn't playing [Kylee Samyn] and we moved in one of our sophomores [Melany Kramer] and she did great tonight and she did great last night also, so that's really nice to be able to see that we can put in subs and they do well."

Both Wabasso and Cathedral have Tomahawk matches Thursday night as Wabasso is at Sleepy Eye and Cathedral travels to Lester Prairie.

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