A battle between senior middle hitters went back and forth Tuesday night in Keshena before the Menominee Indian High School volleyball team beat Gresham 3-1 to open Central Wisconsin Conference-10 play.
“The girls are awesome,” Menominee Indian coach Colette White said. “I’m excited for this year. It’s a young team.”
Trailing 1-0 after Menominee Indian took the first game 25-21, Gresham senior middle hitter Brianna Stehberger had a spike to end the second game 25-23.
“Our girls never gave up,” Gresham coach Tim Wild said. “It was hot in here tonight, and they worked until the very end.”
Menominee Indian senior middle hitter Sasha Peters answered Stehberger’s game-winner with a game-winner of her own in the third game. Menominee Indian won it 25-23 on Peters’ hit.
“When she has her timing down, she’s awesome, she knows it,” White said. “She listens, she looks for advice. She’ll be a great player this year.”
After leading 5-1 early in the fourth game, Menominee Indian fell behind 10-6. Late in the game, a Stehberger spike gave Gresham (1-1, 0-1 Central Wisconsin Conference-10) the lead at 24-20.
Menominee Indian (0-1, 0-1 Central Wisconsin Conference-10) scored the next four points, three coming on senior Leah Schlichting’s serves, to tie it at 24-24. The two teams traded points, then Menominee Indian won it 27-25 on a bump by Schlichting.
“They knew they could do it,” White said. “They knew they could beat them. It was all up to them.”
“I give Menominee Indian credit,” Wild said. “They had some good serves and that threw us off. They definitely wore us down as the night went on.”
The Eagles took a 10-2 lead in the first game on Monae Waukau’s serving. Gresham climbed back into the game, closing to within 14-13. Gresham led the second game throughout, taking an early 8-2 lead. The third game was even throughout.
“It was a match of spurts all night long,” Wild said. “We got in a hole that first game. That hurt us. We had some good runs. Our girls fought back and stayed in the game.”
Stehberger finished the match with six kills. Junior Tatelyn Ferguson had five kills. Nande Carroll had 10 assists and 10 service points.
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