FBA knocks off Vikings
Published 11:28 pm Thursday, November 4, 2010
Hayfield's Abby Blanchard plays the ball during game two of their match in the Section 1A West championship Thursday night at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester. - Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com
HAYFIELD — They were close, but not close enough.
Hayfield lost a pair of two-point match games before dropping the third in a three-game loss to Faribault Bethlehem Academy in the Subsection 1A West Division volleyball title game in Mayo Civic Center Thursday.
Hayfield's Liz Ristau hits against Bethlehem Academy in game one of the Section 1A West championship Thursday night at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester. - Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com
The No. 3 seeded Vikings (17-12 overall) fell by scores of 30-28, 25-23, 25-18.
Hayfield had four chances to score the deciding point in the first game, but couldn’t quite knock it down. Top seeded FBA (24-5 overall) took over when sophomore Jessie Matthews hammered down a kill to make it 28-28, Hayfield made an error to make it 29-28 and FBA eighth grader Payton Schultz put down the deciding kill.
“If you win that that game then you’ve got a huge amount of momentum going into that second game,” Hayfield head coach Deb Harvey said. “Losing that one probably did (hurt us) to some extent. But I was still pleased with the effort in game two.”
Hayfield jumped out to a 6-1 lead early in the second game, but it eventually trailed 23-17. The Vikings pulled to within 23-21 after back-to-back kills by Abby Blanchard and FBA took a 24-22 lead when Matthews landed a kill just inside the back line. The Cardinals, who are ranked No. 2 in Class ‘A’, just missed a four-touch violation when they scored the deciding point.
“For the most part (we’re pleased),” said Blanchard, who had 12 kills and 16 digs for Hayfield. “We’re pretty proud to have played them that close, but it would’ve been nice to beat them. We can hang our hat on playing them close and we can look forward to next year.”
Hayfield's Katie Miner, right, and Dani Wagner put up a wall against the attempted tip of Bethlehem Academy's Taylor North during game three of the Section 1A West championship at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester Thursday night. - Eric Johnson/photodesk@austindailyherald.com
Blanchard, a junior, said the kills were tough to come by against FBA’s active back row.
“They dig up a lot of balls and that kind of messes with your confidence sometimes. Everyone had to keep talking to stay up,” she said. “They didn’t have any hard hammering kills, but they made less mistakes than we did.”
The Cardinals missed seven serves in the first game and had just four serving errors in the next two contests. This is the second straight year that Hayfield has lost to FBA in the subsection title game, but Harvey was very pleased with her team’s effort.
“We battled, we played hard and we played pretty solid defense. We had our chances and we just couldn’t finish it off,” she said. “The kids never quit and you’ve got to be happy with that.”
Hayfield stats: Abby Blanchard, 12 kills, 16 digs, 2 ace serves, 1 block; Molly Streightiff, 3 kills, 13 set assists, 1 block; Liz Ristau, 7 kills, 2 blocks; Alyssa Selk, 28 digs; Katie Miner, 4 kills, 1 block; Jaide Ryks, 13 digs, 1 ace; Dani Wagner, 3 kills, 1 block; Rachel Czaplewski, 9 set assists, 2 ace serves; Emily Blanchard, 1 block; Hannah Wiltgen, 1 ace
