One to Remember
Patriots’ Successful Volleyball Season Ends in Disappointment
After finishing their regular season with a win against Pender, the Patriot volleyball team entered sub-district play seeded #3 in a ruthless C2-6 subdistrict. The sub-district included Stanton, Battle Creek, Madison, and Norfolk Catholic. On Monday, October 30, the Patriots faced #2 Battle Creek.
Both teams were ranked near the top of Class C-2 in power points. The Patriots had defeated the Braves in a tournament game earlier in the season.
This time around, after they were defeated 24-26 in the first set, the Patriots came out flat in the second set. They failed to execute on offense, and serve receive also proved to be an issue. They lost 14-25.
Down two games to none with their season on the line, the Patriots persevered, outlasting Battle Creek 28-26 in the third set, forcing a fourth.
From there, the Patriots never looked back, breezing past the Braves 25-18 in the fourth set and 15-7 in the fifth final set. Endurance definitely proved to be on the Patriots’ side.
Defeating Battle Creek put the Patriots in the sub-district championship the following night against the #1-ranked Stanton Mustangs.
The girls came out ready to play as they took on Stanton. The Patriots put up an amazing battle in the first and second set, but they still lost 17-25 and 18-25. In both games, the Patriots had a lead until about point 16. The Mustangs’ aggressive serves allowed them to pull away each time.
The third set was a doozy of a game, flipping back and forth between points, but sadly the Patriots couldn’t pull together for a win. Stanton claimed the last set 26-24.
“I thought we played fairly well against Stanton,” head coach Rebecca Schneider said. “We battled pretty much point for point until about 15 points every set. Then we let them go on a few runs and we couldn't quite recover. I thought we did a nice job of stepping it up that third set and we put ourselves in a position that gave us an opportunity. We just fell short. We needed to win the serve/pass game and we did not. We had 10 serving errors compared to their 3 errors and that's a huge difference maker. Stanton is a solid team. We did what we could and we battled. We made big plays and had some big stops, but in the end we just couldn't finish.”
The Patriots were hopeful that despite losing to Stanton, they would still earn a wildcard to sub-state. Unfortunately, in an unlucky chain of events, they were edged out in power points by none other than Battle Creek, whom they defeated in the first round. Battle Creek went on to win their sub-state game and qualify for the state tournament. Stanton also qualified for State.
The Patriots ended their season with a 24-8 record, beating last year’s record for best Patriot season record ever. Numerous individual records and team records were also broken this season. The JV and both C-teams also had noteworthy seasons. The JVs finished 16-1, and the two C teams each ended 12-6.