With no chance to move up in the final Bay Conference standings Saturday, the Shawano Community High School volleyball team was essentially preparing for the postseason.
The Hawks finished the conference tourney with a 2-2 record, winning their last two matches of the day to secure seventh place.
“Seventh. Am I happy with it? I don’t know,” Shawano head coach Jean Wolff said. “Does it really tell the true story of our team? No.”
Wolff found a lot of positives after her team dropped the opening two matches and had to play in the bronze bracket, which is the bottom three teams in the nine-school conference.
“Overall for the day, would I have liked to see more wins? Of course,” Wolff said. “I also have to look at the quality of volleyball that they played and they really played some great volleyball today. I think it really prepares us going into tournament play.”
Shawano started the morning in pool play by falling to eventual conference champions Oconto Falls 25-13, 25-20.
“The scores weren’t indicative of the quality of match it was,” Wolff said. “We had lots of long rallies and some really good volleyball going on.”
In the next match, the Hawks lost the first game to Seymour 25-22, rebounded in the second 25-22, but were beaten in Game 3, 15-12. The match was a preview for Tuesday night’s WIAA Division 2 playoffs.
“I was hoping that we’d pull out a win against Seymour,” Wolff said. “It would have been fun to be at least in the silver bracket to end it, just to be a little bit more competitive.”
New London was the first opponent in the afternoon session. The Hawks jumped out to a 9-2 lead and didn’t have much trouble stretching that to 19-4. It eventually ended in a 25-13 win. In the second, the Hawks let the Bulldogs stay close, but ultimately Shawano came away victorious, 25-23.
In the final match of the day, Shawano disposed of Marinette, 25-13, 25-16.
“They didn’t, they finished them in two,” Wolff said. “I’m happy with that.”
For the day, Shawano’s Erika Dunnam recorded 18 digs, 10 blocks and 22 digs. Tori Wiskow added 12 kills, five blocks and 10 digs. Haley Going came through with 41 digs and four service aces, and Annelies Young had 32 assists and 19 digs.
Wolff thought her girls served tremendously all tournament.
“They struggled with hitting consistency at the beginning, and at the end of the day there were a few errors here and there, but our errors were more passing errors, digging errors, transitioning errors,” Wolff said. “I think the hitting got much better.”
Categories
