The Cashton volleyball team was on the brink of ending its three-game league losing streak. The Eagles had pushed rival Brookwood to the edge, holding a 2-1 lead heading into the fourth set on Tuesday, Sept. 29.
The visitors had other plans and mounted a comeback to set up a 3-2 win for the Falcons.
"I'm not disappointed with how they played," said Cashton first year head coach Lauren Fanning. "It's the most grit I've seen them play with in quite a while. Unfortunately, we just had some things not go our way."
The opening set most certainly did go Cashton's way, however, and set the tone for the night. Fanning's Eagles won 25-18, surprising their guests with strong offensive production. Brookwood rebounded with a 25-19 victory in set two before falling behind 2-1 after coming out of the third set on the wrong end of a 27-25 decision.
From there, however, Brookwood's third year head coach David Waraxa guided his gaggle to the most one-sided game of the night, a 25-16 win, to set up a fifth and decisive set.
"We talked about earning the free balls," said Waraxa after the visiting Falcons fell behind 2-1.
"We talked about getting the ball out to Kinsley (Holmquist). She was at 14 or 15 kills after three sets, we needed to get the ball out to our hitter and hit hard when the ball was delivered well."
Brookwood, behind a career night for outside hitter Kinsley Holmquist, came back to win the fifth set 15-9 which secured the 3-2 match win.
Holmquist ended with a career-best 29 kills in the match with nearly half coming in the final two sets of the contest. Stella Mack ended with 33 digs for the black and red while Lialey Bender had 22. Ava Gruen posted 23 digs and led the Falcons with 39 assists.
Tuesday's matchup was the first between the two teams since facing off in a Division 4 regional final last season. Cashton earned a 3-2 win in that match before falling to Fennimore in a sectional semifinal.
Waraxa said, "We talked about the Oct. 25 game and some of us wanted to get a little back from that regional final meeting. We have a few players that were on the team that day. We really wanted to start a positive trend against Cashton with a win tonight. "
"We haven’t gone five (sets) since that regional final match. We hopefully learned tonight that we can control the set by learning when to play aggressively and when to just extend the rally to work towards earning a free ball."
"With a match that goes five, comes experience of the pressure. We didn’t cave under the pressure of being down 2-1. That points towards the team learning to play under the pressure."
For Cashton, Aubri Schaldach notched 17 kills across five sets while Tempi Strait chimed in for 7. Evelyn Weber posted a team-high five serving aces and Finley Brown led the Eagles with 24 assists and 39 digs.
"I'm happy to see the fire and drive to compete again," said Fanning in regards to Cashton's efforts. "Hopefully that can continue into the last couple weeks of the season."
The Eagles will be at New Lisbon on Oct. 1 and will return home for a second meeting with Necedah on Tuesday, Oct. 6.
ROYALL 3 CASHTON 0
Schaldach and Strait were each limited to two kills at Royall on Sept. 24. Sophie Lukaszewski ended with six assists and Kennedy Brown paced the team with six digs. Cashton was held to scores of 9, 16 and 15.
AREA NOTES
Westby suffered a 3-0 defeat at Viroqua on Tuesday, Sept. 29. No stats were reported by time of print. The Norsemen are at Arcadia on Oct. 1 and will host West Salem on Oct. 6.
In other Coulee action, G-E-T passed Black River Falls 3-1 and league-leading West Salem swept Arcadia 3-0.
In Scenic Bluffs play, Bangor stayed tied with Wonewoc-Center atop the league standings with a 3-1 win at Hillsboro. Wonewoc-Center swept Necedah 3-0 Tuesday and Royall swept New Lisbon.
