WOODWARD — The goal, all season, was to reach the state tournament. When a target is set so high, coming up short is often viewed as a failure, but Woodward-Granger volleyball head coach Meg Jackson said she hoped that is not how her Hawks would view the 2016 campaign.
“It is hard when you season goal is State and that is what all your focus has been on and then you don’t reach it,” she said after a 3-2 Class 2A Region 4 loss to Grundy Center Thursday. “I know it is hard for the girls right now to have a little perspective and think ‘oh, but this was so much fun’ but I hope after a while that is how they will feel, and I think they will.”
Grundy Center (24-16) faced a 19-14 deficit in the fourth set and were just six points from bowing out when they rallied for a 25-22 win to force a fifth set. Down 14-12, the scored four consecutive points to stun the ninth-ranked Hawks (31-9), 16-14, for a 3-2 win.
“I told the girls in the locker room that I understood the pain they are feeling right now, but I asked them ‘Was it worth it?’ and they all said ‘yes,'” Jackson said. “We had high goals, but they were not unreasonable, and that is part of why it hurts so much. But, saying that, we had a great season and did so many great things and in time I think they will realize that.”
Grundy Center — as they were last year, and as Eddyville-Blakesburg was in 2014 — became the only team not bigger in class than the W-G to defeat the Hawks. The Spartans opened with a 25-16 win against the hosts, who scored few points while serving and had a series of miss hits.
W-G trailed, 18-15, in the second set, but grabbed momentum when Julie Pitman and Mary Hansen combined for a block at the net that tied the game at 19-all. The Hawks moved into a 22-20 lead, but the Spartans tied the set at 23-all before consecutive points gave the home team a 25-23 win.
The third set was tied at 10-10, with W-G slowly able to open a 17-14 lead. A quick-reaction dig from Olivia McCune that led to a Mary Hansen kill clearly sparked the Hawks, leading to an extended run and a 25-15 victory.
Grundy Center had been playing stoutly on defense, but holes began to be found by W-G as the match rolled along, with a series of strong plays creating a 19-13 Hawk lead in the fourth set. Two excellent digs and a fine hustling save allowed the Spartans to close to within 19-16, but the hosts still appeared to be in control.
Unfortunately for the home team and their boisterous crowd, the momentum had changed, and the visitors began to rattle the Hawks with several blocks and well-placed attacks to steal a 25-22 win and force the deciding set.
“You never want to lose that fourth set when you are up 2-1, because despite obviously not winning the match, the other team now has momentum going into the fifth set, which they did,” Jackson explained. “Then we got the momentum back and looked to be in good shape, but we got stuck on a rotation that is a little tricky for us because we are kind of limited on hitters. We tried to re-arrange a little bit in our serve-receive, but we just didn’t have enough to finish.”
W-G led by three points at 3-0, 12-9 and 13-10, and then received a big lift when a serve into the net pushed the score to 14-10, putting the Hawks a single point from moving on.
“We got a little bit scared and went for the safe play,” Jackson said of the final string of points. “Against a team as good as Grundy (Center) that just isn’t going to work.”
It did not, allowing the Spartans to survive four elimination points and tie the match at 14-all. Two points later and the maroon-clad Spartans were exultant and the white-and-green Hawks disconsolate.
McCune served 23-of-25 with seven aces while making 21 kills and providing eight digs while Hansen had 10 kills, 14 assists, 18 digs and served 6-of-6, with Bree Lesch making 30 digs while tallying eight kills and four assists and serving 17-of-18.
Kara Bodensteiner was 20-21-1 with 13 digs and two assists while Riley Kirton was 15-15-1 with three digs. Alyssa Bice was 9-12-1 with 23 assists, 17 digs and two kills, with Ashley Gales recording five kills and three digs, while Pitman had two kills and five digs and Kaycee Major 12 digs and an assist. Pitman and Hansen had three blocks apiece and McCune one.
The loss ends stellar prep careers for Bodensteiner, Hansen, Kirton, Lesch and McCune. The quartet were a combined 91-26 overall in the past three years, with just three losses (none in the regular season) to schools smaller than 3A. They won three consecutive West Central Conference titles (24-0) while dropping just two sets in those two dozen matches.
Numerous individual plaudits have already been received, and more are sure to come. Lesch departs as the school record holder in ace serves with 253; Hansen is second on the list with 239. Lesch is second in career digs, finishing with 1,431 just 41 shy of Abby Musser’s (2015) mark. Also leaving with a school record is McCune, whose 197 career blocks shattered the old school mark of 160 set by Abby Hansen in 2014.
“This group of seniors has been very special, but what rounded out the team was the play we received from some underclassmen who I really rode hard last year,” Jackson said. “They were making mistakes and not playing well and I really got on them, but they went out and worked their butts off in the off season and came in here this year so improved that when we added them to these great seniors we ended up with the kind of team we had. A lot of girls played a role in our success and they should all be proud.”
