Suns' state dreams dashed again by Rockets

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)

Published: Nov. 5, 2013

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL — WIAA SECTIONAL FINAL: NEENAH 3, EAST 0

Suns’ state dreams dashed again by Rockets

East loses 4th straight sectional final

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

Daily News Sports Editor

MANITOWOC — From the first day of practice, West Bend East volleyball coach Colleen Hasse told her team if they worked hard and did their best, they would succeed.

So imagine what it was like for Hasse to look at her team after a season-ending loss and have to tell them their best wasn’t good enough.

“It sucks,” she said.

For the fourth year in a row, the Suns came up one victory short of the WIAA girls volleyball state tournament, losing in three sets to Neenah, 25-13, 26-24, 25-19, on Saturday night in a WIAA Division 1 sectional final at Lincoln High School.

The Suns (40-5) lost the 2010 and 2011 sectional finals to Fond du Lac and last year’s sectional final to Neenah (41-4).

“From a coaching standpoint, when you work so hard with a group of kids to get them prepared and just cannot seem to get through that roadblock that is the sectional finals,” Hasse said, “it takes a little beating on your pride.”

Hasse called Saturday’s loss the toughest in her career, which includes a loss in the 2007 state championship.

“It’s tough because you never want to see kids disappointed because of all the hard work they put in,” she said.

The battle was going to be tough for the Suns, who were trying to get back to state for the first time since 2008. Dating back to last year’s final against Neenah, the Suns had lost three straight matches to the Rockets, failing to win even a set in those matches.

The Rockets got the boost to start the match, scoring the match’s first three points.

East was able to tie the set at 4, but that was it. The Rockets got in a rhythm and the Suns were struggling. When Hasse took a timeout with the Suns down 23-11 in the first set, she said the team had made 16 errors of some kind up to that point.

“I can’t figure it out right now,” Hasse said about the slow start. “It’s probably something I’ll process for the next couple of weeks and figure out why it takes 25 points to get the first-game jitters out. I wish I could go back and take that first game away because we’d be looking at a whole different ballgame.”

In the second set, the Suns made it tough on the Rockets who, under coach Bruce Moriarty, have gone to 14 sectional finals in 16 seasons but are 5-9 in those matches. East has now lost three of its last four postseason meetings against Neenah.

“West Bend East makes you work really hard for everything you get,” Moriarty said. “I have so much respect for them, their coaching staff, their players. They play so hard and they make you earn everything you get.”

East appeared to have a chance to get the momentum late in the second set. Tied at 23, Geidel got a kill, but she was called for a net violation. So instead of the score being 24-23 East, it was Neenah with the lead. It was an unfortunate blow for the Suns, but they were able to tie the set again at 24. Then back-to-back blocks by Carley Ramich and Lexi Watt helped Neenah escape with the set victory.

“They were really giving us their best punch,” Moriarty said. “Had it been tied 1-1 at the end of the second set it’s a whole different ballgame. Mentally, it’s such an advantage to be up 2-0.”

East held a 7-4 lead in the third set before Neenah reeled off three straight points to tie it. The Rockets took the lead for good following a kill by Hope Werch to make it 10-9.

“What killed us was they ran their middle fast and we just couldn’t seem to get a block on that,” Hasse said. “I thought we did a pretty good job this time around getting better touches on the ball and their serve receive hits.

“It was just the rally plays where we would keep getting balls up and getting it back over and they would just keep punching them at us.”

The Suns had so much hope of breaking through to the state tournament. They had nine seniors, including three who were All-State selections last year (Delaney McCreary, Baylee Gross and Natalie Geidel). The Suns also had all six starters back, plus their first four spots off the bench.
The Suns finished in the top four in two of the state’s most prestigious volleyball tournaments, The Joust and The Sprawl. They won 40 matches for the first time since 2008. They went undefeated in the Wisconsin Little Ten for the first time in Hasse’s tenure, which dates back more than 10 seasons.
“We’ve got to look inside ourselves and we’ve got to see what we’ve got to do to make it better,” Hasse said. “While we’re trying to make ourselves better, everybody else is too.
“We can’t continue the way it is. Otherwise, teams are going to continue to get better and we’re going to stay status quo.”