NICL West clash cause to look toward regional assignments

ACKLEY – If the Thursday, Oct. 8 NICL West clash between visiting Grundy Center against AGWSR is any indication how the post-season will go, there is reason for both teams to be ecstatic.

It was a fiery atmosphere as Grundy Center came out with a 3-1 win over the Cougars.

Both teams found out their regional bracket assignments earlier that day before the Spartans came in for the 25-22, 16-25, 25-16, 25-21 win over the Cougars.

“I feel pretty good about our bracket,” AGWSR coach Jill Smith said of the Class 1A Region 3 field starting Oct. 19. “We have two home matches. If we win, we have two more home matches, so that’s awesome. We have Colo-NESCO, who we have seen, so I feel like that is going to give us a little bit of confidence. I think we can make a good run in the post-season and from here, we have to build…

“We have to get better, we come into the post-season, everybody is 0-0, it’s a new ballgame. We have to play like that and go from there.”

Grundy Center, in Class 2A, opens with Jesup on Oct. 21.

“We’re super-excited about it, our regional pairings,” Grundy Center coach Lori Willis said. “I think it’s wide open, the teams are really even and that can be anybody, so why not us? We have experience, we are just going to keep getting better because our lineup is finally fairly intact. So, we’re just going to keep gelling, getting better.”

A back-and-forth first set went to Grundy Center, with nine of Abby Hamann’s match-high 26 kills coming in the opener.

The Spartans threatened to run away to start the second set, but a pivotal serving run by Taylor Sperfslage, who was 19-of-20 with three aces, forcing two Grundy Center timeouts during that span in which the Cougars took a 21-14 lead.

“I thought that defense was going to win this, especially that second set where we ran away with that one, our defense was phenomenal,” coach Smith said. “We were digging everything and I think they made some adjustments offensively and we tried to counteract that. We just came out on the short side, but yeah, for sure we did some really good things. Again, it is executing consistently.”

The adjustments Grundy made after that provided the difference.

“I made a substitution where we had Lainy Thoren, she’s not feeling so good, so we had her play front row,” coach Willis said. “We had a senior who has a ton of experience in the back row and we put her in the back row for her.”

Both coaches said they liked what they saw from their team as a whole.

“I think it was a complete team effort, given time somebody had to step up and play for us, somebody on the serving line, passing, hitting, setting,” coach Willis said. “It was a great team effort and the girls never got down. They did a little in set two, when the crowd started to get rowdy. I just reminded them that that’s good energy. Any kind of energy is good energy that we can use it to springboard us and that’s exactly what the girls did.”

Thoren added 10 kills for the Spartans and Carlie Willis added 10 more and five blocks for Grundy.

Brynn Smith led the way with 11 kills for AGWSR while Taylor Sperfslage added 10 and Alyssa Hames tallied eight.

“I thought Alyssa had a really good night offensively, I felt like our match-ups in the middle were advantageous to us when (Lainy Thoren) was in the back row,” coach Smith said. “We had to take advantage of that maybe a little bit more, but I thought the setters distributed the ball pretty well, they really camped out there on the outsides, and others had to step up and they did, so that was good to see.”

Grundy Center 25-16-25-25

AGWSR 22-25-16-21

Kills– GC (Abby Hamann 26, Carlie Willis 14, Lainy Thoren 7, Ellery Luhring 4, Dahlia Gardner 3); AGWSR (Brynn Smith 11, Taylor Sperfslage 10, Alyssa Hames 8, MaKenna Kuper 5, Josie Winterberg). Blocks– GC (Thoren 5, Gardner 2); AGWSR (Grace Finger 2, Smith 2, Kuper). Assists– GC (Luhring 46, Willis, Hamann); AGWSR (Gerstein NA, Winterberg NA). Digs– GC (Jacque Kuester 15); AGWSR (Hamann 22, Haleigh Homeyer 15). Serving– GC (Willis 10-10, ace; Lucy Lebo 16-17, 2 aces; Luhring 15-16, Kuester 14-15, ace; Laney Dole 11-13, ace; Hamann 13-16, ace); AGWSR (Gerstein 15-15; Alayna Hunt 14-14; Ta. Sperfslage 19-20, 3 aces; Homeyer 7-8; Smith 5-8).