Dutchmen Win 13th Match
By Mike Drooger –
The Edgerton Flying Dutchmen volleyball team had enjoyed 11 days off from competition when they hosted the Patriots of Hills-Beaver Creek on October 11. Coach Katelyne Alderson was a little nervous about her team’s upcoming performance, and it did take Edgerton a while to get going, but when they did, it turned out to be an easy 3-0 win for EHS. Game scores were 25-18, 25-14, and 25-15.
“Honestly, I was a little nervous coming into tonight, having that long break, and then playing on a Monday. A lot of things were going through my head. ‘We can do this,’ ‘We can pull this off,’ ‘We just have to show up on a Monday, which is a tough thing to do,’” Coach Alderson shared during her postgame interview with KDWC radio’s Tom Bouma.
The score seesawed back and forth through the first third of the opening set. The score was tied seven times before the Patriots took a 12-10 lead, which prompted an Alderson timeout. During the timeout, she told her team there wasn’t enough talking going on, and at times there was none.
Even after play resumed, it took EHS a while to get going. They fell behind 10-13 and 11-15 before the Patriots had a net serve that brought Reece Wassink to the service line for the Dutchmen. When Wassink was done serving, Edgerton had tied it at 16-all. During Wassink’s run, Edgerton got a pair of kills from Alyda Vande Griend and one from Mateya Gilbertson. Emma Schoolmeester served EHS to a lead of 19-17 thanks to another Vande Griend kill, and an HBC spike attempt hit into the net.
A Wassink backset to Gilbertson resulted in a kill for a 20-17 Edgerton lead. Haley Wieck came up with a one-handed block for point 21, Kresley Fraser smacked a kill for point 22, and the next two points were errors by HBC. A Wieck block put the 25th and final point on the board, and it was on to set number two.
Coach Alderson said, “We had some service errors early, and we played thready here and there. In game two, they found their stride and figured it out.”
In game two, Gilbertson served EHS from a lead of 6-4 to 11-5. Wieck and Wassink were the big hitters during the run, and Gilbertson had an ace serve. The rest of the points in game two were spread around to a variety of hitters including Kresley Fraser, who was named the De Boer Chevrolet and J & S Logos Player of the Game, along with Wassink. Fraser said the long time off was good for the team to work on some things they needed to work on but, “It felt good to take a win, especially on a Monday,” Fraser noted.
