PREP VOLLEYBALL: Rabbits earn second place finish at home tournament
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WABASSO - The Wabasso volleyball team opened its home tournament on Saturday in dominant fashion by going undefeated in the three-game round-robin stage, knocking off Redwood Valley, Southwest Minnesota Christian and MACCRAY in decisive straight-set victories to move on to the winner's bracket. Through the initial three games, Coach Barbara Johnson was pleased with the effort that her team put forth in spite of some setbacks along the way.
"I thought we played pretty well overall," said Johnson. "We did have a few mental letdowns I guess but we always came back and ended up finishing the game and winning. So that's really good to just see the perseverance to keep going."
In the final leg of the tournament, the Rabbits squared off with Pipestone in the semifinals where they earned another straight set win to move on to the championship match with BOLD. In what was a tightly contested match, the Warriors came out on top, giving the Rabbits a second-place finish and a 4-1 record overall in the tournament.
In the opening game of the tournament, the Rabbits came out on fire in the first set against Redwood Valley to take a quick 10-1 lead before cruising to a 25-8 set win. Johnson acknowledged the fast starts that would transpire throughout the day for the Rabbits as a major factor to their overall success.
"That's always really huge to get ahead right away at the beginning of the game," said Johnson. "It's mentally positive for us and negative for the other team, so it's always really good."
The Rabbits would get out to a similar start in the second and final set of game one to earn the first three points, but Redwood Valley provided a bigger challenge this time around, battling back to tie four times midway through. Undeterred, the Rabbits found a way to dig in and earn a 25-20 second set win to take the match.
Wabasso would carry its momentum over into its second match of the day with Southwest Minnesota Christian and continue its trend of starting fast as it built a sizeable lead in the first set at 15-4. The Rabbits didn't look back and took the first set 25-14. The Eagles, however, would bounce back in the second set and took a 11-10 lead early. The two teams traded points the rest of the way through, with the Rabbits getting the better of the exchanges to win 25-21 to take the match 2-0.
In the final match of the round-robin portion of the tournament, Wabasso took on MACCRAY with the opportunity to move on into the championship round. Aware of what was at stake, the Rabbits took it to their opponent and controlled the set from the very first serve to earn a 25-7 win. In the process, the Rabbits picked up multiple aces by identifying their opponents' weaknesses.
"The girls have done a really great job of identifying the weaker passers and going to them and then just serving good strong serves.," said Johnson. "They're not doing anything crazy, they're just having good solid serving."
Contrary to the previous five sets, the Rabbits opened up the second set with an early deficit but continually battled throughout. Despite starting slower than what they had grown accustomed to, Wabasso was still able to get the job done as they remained in complete control in the latter stages of the set to edge MACCRAY 25-16 and take the match 2-0.
Following their fourth consecutive two-set victory over Pipestone in the semifinals, the Rabbits looked to cap off an impressive tournament run with a championship victory over the BOLD Warriors. Unfortunately, it wasn't in the cards as the Rabbits dropped the first set in a nail-biter with the final score 26-24 in favor of BOLD. The Warriors would go on to win the second and final set 25-21 to take the match and earn a first-place finish.
Through the four tournament games, Megan Rothmeier led her team in digs with 48. Maddy Guetter would finish the day with a team-leading 34 digs, 71 kills and seven aces. Jenna Frank paced the team in set assists with 114 while Amanda Hoffman finished with a team-high 12 blocks.
After their stellar tournament run, the Rabbits will look to improve to 8-3 on the season when they take on Sleepy Eye St. Mary's in a home matchup on Thursday.