Bulldog volleyball has tough week
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By Missy Klatt
Sports Correspondent
It was a tough week for the Lady Bulldogs as they dropped their last three regular-season volleyball matches this past week.
Boyceville finished tied for fourth place with rival Glenwood City in the final 2019 Dunn-St. Croix standings, each with 3-4 records.
Overall, the Bulldogs are 8-17 heading into this week’s WIAA Division 3 tournament. Boyceville, who received the 13th seed in their half of the sectional bracket, had to travel to #4 Phillips last evening, Tuesday, October 22, for a regional quarterfinal match. The winner will take on the victor of the Unity (#5) vs. Chetek-Weyerhaeuser (#12) contest this Thursday, October 24. The regional championship is set for Saturday, October 26.
On Monday, October 14th the Bulldogs fell to Prairie Farm in a non-conference match, then the very next night they lost to conference co-leader, Elk Mound. Then on Thursday, October 17th, Boyceville played five sets against Elmwood/Plum City but unfortunately came out on the losing end, giving the Wolves their first and only conference win of the season.
Head Coach Keri Peterson remarked about the week saying, “We are a team that can definitely hang in there with the other teams in sets, but we struggle to finish three sets to get the win and that’s frustrating. We can’t be good enough in one or two sets and let the others slip away.”
Prairie Farm
On Monday, the Bulldogs traveled to Prairie Farm for a non-conference match.
The Bulldogs lost the first set 17- 25. Then in the second set Coach Peterson admitted that her team lost its momentum and played without a lot of desire. Prairie Farm took advantage of that and easily won the second set 25-14. By the third set, the Lady Dawgs had composed themselves but it wasn’t enough as they came up on the losing end 23-25.
Elk Mound
The Lady Dawgs were on the road again Tuesday when they faced off against conference co-leader Elk Mound. Despite losing the match 22-25, 13-25 and 24-26, Coach Peterson had this to say afterwards, “We played two very close sets against Elk Mound, which I am happy about considering they finished near the top of the conference.”
She continued candidly, “Overall, I thought we lacked control in this match. We were out-of-system a lot and played frantic at times. We have to do a better job of passing the ball and being in position defensively to make good plays on the ball.”
For the match, Hannah Johnson led the team in kills with seven as well as in digs with nine. Emma Bygd, Chrissa Kersten and Torrie Bland each had three digs. Ella Holden and Taylor Grambow added to the attack with four and three kills, respectively. Emma Ouellette led in assists with eight followed by Torrie Bland with five.
Elmwood/Plum City
On Thursday, October 17th, the Lady Bulldogs hosted the Elmwood/Plum City Wolves in their last conference and regular season match which was also senior night.
“We celebrated our five seniors tonight for Senior Night: Emma Bygd, Emma Ouellette, Megan Hintzman, Taylor Grambow and Hannah Johnson,” said Peterson. “They are a great group of girls that will be missed next season.”
However, the Wolves put a damper on Senior Night when they came ready to play and took set one from the Bulldogs with a score of 25-17.
Peterson conceded, “They came in here ready to play and caught us off guard in the first set a bit. They served really well and made it a competitive match.”
The Bulldogs bounced back and took sets two and three with identical scores of 25-18.
However, the Wolves tied the match up when they won the fourth set 25-21.
“We had our chances to finish this match in the fourth set, but we didn’t. We gave away too many points with blocking and serving errors tonight,” lamented Peterson.
The fifth set didn’t get any better for the Bulldogs as they played tentatively and stopped hitting the ball, giving the Wolves too many easy balls. The Wolves went on to win the set 15-11 and the match three sets to two.
Kady Grambow had a great night of serving, serving 26 times, erroring only twice and ace serving four times. Hannah Johnson also served up five aces. Chrissa Kersten led the teams in digs with nine followed by Emma Ouellettte with five.
Hannah was once again the team kill leader with ten, Ella Holden added nine, Taylor Grambow six and Megan Hintzman had five. Emma Ouellette had twenty assists and Megan Hintzman added seven more.