Colfax volleyball team competes in Menomonie Sprawl; hosts Bloomer

By Cara L. Dempski

COLFAX — The Colfax Volleyball squad wound up in the middle of the pack of 34 teams during the Menomonie Sprawl, held August 26 and 27 at UW–Stout.

The Vikings also hosted its first contest of the season August 30 when it welcomed the Bloomer Blackhawks for a non-conference game.

Menomonie Sprawl

Teams participating in the Menomonie Sprawl, held on the UW-Stout campus, played Friday to earn their spots in various tournament pools. The top eight teams played Saturday in the gold pool, the next nine played in silver, the following nine were placed in the bronze pool, and the final eight teams played in the Blue Devil pool.

The Vikings played well enough on Friday to land a spot in the silver pool and finished 17th overall.

Eau Claire North beat Colfax in straight sets, 21-25 and 13-25, in the Vikings’ first match of the meet. The Huskies eventually went undefeated for the weekend and claimed the Sprawl championship.

Colfax faced Wausau West next, dropping the first set 17-25 before coming back to win the second and third 26-24 and 16-14 respectively.

“We were down the second set 9-19 and came back and won that set and the third for the win,” coach Pam Meredith said.

Barron stepped up the to net to play Colfax next, and again the Vikings lost the first set before picking up wins in the final two. Meredith said the team was again slow to start, but settled into a groove and pulled out the win.

The Vikings faced conference opponent Mondovi in the final match of pool play.

Meredith said of this match, “As par for the course, we lost the first set horribly, but we showed resiliency one last time.”

Colfax won its final two sets against Mondovi 25-20 and 18-16.

Saturday proved a bit of a turnaround for the Vikings, as the team lost all three matches.

“We just were not able to recreate our magic of losing the first set and then claiming a victory,” Meredith said.

Turtle Lake met the Vikings in their first game of the day where Colfax lost a very close first set and then dropped the second 11-25. The Vikings moved on to Cochrane-Fountain City and lost the first set 24-26 before succumbing 18-25 in the second.

Onalaska took on the Vikings in the final match of Saturday, and Meredith said it looked like her team was losing steam as it lost in straight sets.

“I felt the weekend was a very good showing on our part as we are a very young team,” Meredith stated.

Meredith expressed pleasure in seeing her team overcome a first set loss three times and said she was encouraged by some of the excellent plays the team executed. Overall, the Vikings’ coach saw more positives and negatives over the weekend.

“We’ll roll with that,” she said.

The Vikings players recorded some solid numbers for the weekend. Rachel Scharlau chalked up 33 kills over the weekend; she was followed closely by Samantha Pretasky with 32, Kameri Meredith with 27, Makayla Mattson with 25 and Savannah Henricks with 16.

Coach Meredith said the girls presented a very balanced attack and she was pleased with what she saw.

Jozie Buchanan finished her weekend with 105 assists and 17 services aces. Kameri Meredith provided another 11 service aces and Bryana Buchanan led the defensive play with 77 digs.

Colfax hosts Bloomer

Colfax hosted the Bloomer on August 30 in its annual showdown with the Blackhawks.

The Vikings lost the match 3-1 in a battle described by Meredith as “epic.”

Colfax started the match with a strong first set, winning 25-23 in a battle that seemed an all-out brawl. The Blackhawks and Vikings went back and forth on scoring in the set, working hard for each point earned.

The Vikings dropped the second set 19-25 before going up 15-7 in the third. After a short scoring run by Bloomer, Colfax again pushed out ahead to 19-12.

Bloomer’s fourth rotation then put together a series of serves that left the Vikings scrambling to receive well enough to stay in it’s system, and making it difficult to use the hitters to full effect.

Meredith said, “If we did pass the ball ‘in the well,’ our hitters were unable to terminate the ball whether it was a hitting error or the Bloomer libero found a way to get a touch on every ball.”

Bloomer ran the score to 22-19 in that rotation. The Vikings tried to battle back, but were only able to reach 22 points before the Blackhawks slammed the match point over the net to end the game at 22-25.

Colfax appeared to lose steam in the fourth set and eventually fell to Bloomer, 18-25 to end the match.

Meredith was happy with how her team played against an older, more experienced team, but said the third set was hard to take because the team was not playing with discipline.

“We found ourselves not moving our feet on serve receive, not transitioning off the net as hitters, defensively standing with the weight on our heels when Bloomer was attacking,” Meredith stated. “I can’t describe it any other way except it was a train wreck.”

The team entered their August 31st practice session discussing how a lack of discipline and focus can rapidly change the momentum in a volleyball match.

Samantha Pretasky provided nearly half of the Vikings’ kills on August 30, putting up eight. Makayla Mattson and Kameri Meredith recorded six kills and five kills respectively.

Freshman Jozie Buchanan provided the team with 25 assists in the game, while her sister Bryana, a senior, logged 25 digs. Savannah Henricks and Meredith provided net coverage with four block assists and two solo blocks each.

The Vikings will play their next game at home against Somerset on September 8. They travel to Hudson for an invitational on Saturday, September 10.