NorthWood Volleyball Sectional: Warriors, Vikings Knocked Out
NAPPANEE – It was an entertaining opening night of volleyball at NorthWood, seeing West Noble and Fairfield come out victorious against Wawasee and Tippecanoe Valley in the Class 3-A sectional Thursday.
West Noble 3, Wawasee 0
The scoreline of 25-18, 25-13, 25-20 didn’t represent the lopsided looking scores, as Wawasee gave the defending sectional champs all they could handle.
“Wawasee really forced us to make a lot of errors and got us out of position a little,” said West Noble head coach Kaija Kauffman. “I don’t think we were ready for the energy that Wawasee brought.”
To the credit of the Chargers, the tournament is not about style points rather getting to three in the wins column, and West Noble did just that. Using the prowess of its monster in the middle, Madison Schermerhorn, Wawasee had no answers when it came down to the grind. The junior had a block and ace during the back half of the first game, and while quiet in game two, had a huge block in game three to help the Chargers take a 16-11 lead. West Noble would be in the midst of a 7-1 run in that stretch, and Schermerhorn would wind up with 12 kills, five digs and four blocks on the night.
“We were anticipating seeing (Schermerhorn) on the outside a little bit more than the middle, so that was a little bit of a surprise to us,” said Wawasee head coach Kayla Riportella. “Focusing on finding her wherever she was on that court and putting at least a blocker up in front of her to get at least some hands on it. West Noble did a great job of varying their shots and running Schermerhorn out of every slot in that front row. In the end she was hard to defend.”
Three Wawasee errors in a sequence pushed the score to 20-16 in game one, breaking up what was a one-point swing for a stretch. Game two had saw several Wawasee receiving errors and poor defensive reads foil its run. The Chargers broke open a one-point game in the third, sending an 11-10 mark to a 20-13 advantage on a pair of karma serves, Wawasee’s falling back on its side after a split second of sitting on its own net, then West Noble’s next one doing the same, but falling over the top harmlessly on Wawasee’s side.
“There’s one way to go out of a season, if it’s not with a trophy it’s going down fighting,” Riportella said. “They took that point for point. They refused to look at that and say we are defeated. They took that and rolled. They fought it to the end. That’s all I can ask for is a fight to the end.”
Kristina Teel had 29 assists and four digs and Tori Miller added 12 kills for the Chargers (25-8). Wawasee (5-27) had Hannah Gaerte lead the team with nine kills and eight digs, Brooke Heche add 11 assists and six digs, Elizabeth Kleopfer toss in nine assists and six digs, Peyton Rookstool kill seven attempts and Hannah-Marie Lamle record eight digs.
“I didn’t feel like we clicked tonight other than serving, and even that was off,” Kauffman said. “We really rely on having an aggressive serve and we had a couple moments, but not like we have done before. But there were times tonight when I looked out at the court and wondered what are we doing? I can point to a spot, but will we move to it? We have to pick it up for Saturday or we could be in trouble.”
Fairfield 3, Tippecanoe Valley 1
Game two of the night was all about momentum. After Valley stole it from Fairfield with a game two win, Fairfield stole it back in game three and kept it, ending the night on an emphatic run to close out a 26-24, 23-25, 25-22, 25-15 quarterfinal win.
Not much separated the two teams in any of the first three games. Valley did have a 23-20 lead in game one, but a Fairfield tip and a pair of wide attacks from Valley tied the game, and after Valley had a service error give Fairfield a 25-24 lead, Chloe Bontrager’s block lifted the Falcons in a crucial first tally.
Shayleigh Shriver had a hand in the roller coaster in game two, registering a kill, but then committing a pair of errors that tied the game at 23. She would exact some revenge with an ace, however, to close out game two, and played some gutty defense to help Valley take a 12-7 lead in game three. The Vikings looked poised to shock the 12-time sectional champions, but Fairfield put on a furious rally, coming back to tie the game then storm out for a 24-20 lead seemingly without much malaise.
“We got a few unlucky breaks and some blocking errors,” noted Tippecanoe Valley head coach Mallory Eaton, “but towards the end they were hitting some great shots. Really working the perimeter. Even if you are in right defensive spot, that’s going to be a tough ball to get. A lot of times, they were just going over the top of our block. You can only be so tall and jump so high.
“We used so much early that we have to work so much harder to get up there that I think we ran out of gas towards the end.”
A 13-13 game in game four, Fairfield put an exclamation point on knocking out the pesky Vikings with an 11-0 run.
“I think this is some of the best volleyball we have played all year,” Eaton said. “If it’s going to be your last game, you want to go out playing the best ball you can.”
Fairfield (27-7) had Bontrager lead with 18 kills and Julia Brown do it all with 37 assists, 15 digs and four aces.
Valley bows out at 22-12 overall, and had Sophie Bussard finish with 19 kills and three blocks, Shriver with 14 digs and three aces, Emily Peterson hoist 31 assists and Olivia Trippiedi contribute 13 digs in her final game for Valley.
West Noble and Fairfield will meet in the first semi-final Saturday morning at 11 a.m., a rematch of the Northeast Corner Conference championship from last weekend won by West Noble. NorthWood (20-9) and Lakeland (3-23) will battle in game two with the championship game set for 5 p.m.