Coming in with an undefeated record in North Eastern Conference play, the Luxemburg-Casco High School volleyball team was confident.
So was host Oconto Falls.
The Panthers gave L-C all it could handle, but the Spartans took advantage of strong serving and some Oconto Falls miscues in scoring a 3-1 victory (25-21, 22-25, 25-19, 25-19) Thursday.
“It was a great match; we battled back and forth,” Oconto Falls coach Rochell Otto said. “There were some strong attacks on both sides, unfortunately too many runs, but it happened both ways. We would go on some runs, and unfortunately, we gave them too many runs.”
Playing against the conference leader didn’t faze Oconto Falls.
“I think we were ready,” Otto said. “We came in with the mindset knowing that we could compete with them. We played them, and we have (Emily) Kilmer and Shelby Coron, and we have some hitters. We knew that we could compete with them, we just had to not have as many unforced mistakes.”
Oconto Falls (17-13, 5-3 North Eastern Conference) led early in all four games, but Luxemburg-Casco (24-13, 8-0 NEC) never panicked and always came back strong.
“We came out slow. One of the big things we talk about is starting fast, and we’ve done that the last couple of games,” Luxemburg-Casco coach Jeff Frey said. “We did that in Game 1, but Game 2 and Game 3, they came out fast. I actually thought the turning point was when we were down 23-14 (in Game 2) and our girls fought and got it to 24-22, which kind of helped us.”
With the match tied at one game apiece, Oconto Falls jumped out to an 8-1 lead in Game 3. Luxemburg-Casco capped a 15-7 run to go up 16-15 and forced Otto to call a timeout. The Panthers hit a pair of balls out of bounds late in the match, and the Spartans escaped with a 25-19 victory.
In Game 4, Oconto Falls trailed 10-5, but went up 17-16 after a big kill by junior middle hitter Coron. Back-to-back kills by Luxemburg-Casco swung the momentum, and the visitors ended the match with another 25-19 win.
With the lead late in the Game 4, Oconto Falls couldn’t close it out.
“I think again, it was unforced errors,” Otto said. “We didn’t get the ball, and they had some nice digs and kept us on defense. We would be diving all over and free-balling it over and they would pound. There were some good volleys, but it was us on the defense.”
Luxemburg-Casco, which can cap an undefeated record in conference and win the title outright in its final game against Clintonville on Oct. 15, finished strong in Game 1, breaking a 17-all tie and going on to a 25-21 win.
Oconto Falls led the entire second game except for two ties and had a commanding 23-14 lead. Luxemburg-Casco made a last-ditch effort to put the pressure on. The Spartans tallied eight of the next nine points to make the Panthers sweat out a 25-22 victory.
The Panthers players accomplished what their coach wanted, but it just wasn’t enough.
“I think we shut down their middles,” Otto said. “I don’t know how many kills they had, and I think we controlled them and that was our game plan because we knew they had two strong middle attacks. We took them off their passing game and got them off kilter so they couldn’t use their middle attack as often as they would have liked.”
Kilmer led Oconto Falls with 17 kills and added 10 digs. Coron had eight kills and three blocks. Bailey Magnin had a team-high 12 digs, and Mikaela Thomson added 10 digs and 28 assists. Carolyn Malcheski registered three aces and Jennifer Krueger got five blocks.
Despite the loss, Otto took away some positives from her players’ effort.
“I can’t go away from this game being disappointed, they played hard,” Otto said. “L-C, hats off to them. They served well and kept us off-balance – went short, went deep. It was a great game to coach.”
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