FIELD TWP- It’s a good thing the North Woods Grizzlies volleyball team enjoys playing together, because they may have spent more waking hours with their teammates than their families in a ten-day stretch in which they will have played ten matches.
Beginning Sept. 20 with a win against Cherry and scheduled to end this Thursday with a road trip to Northeast Range, the Grizzlies will have played matches every other day for ten days, including a Saturday tournament in Virginia where they took on four school in just one day.
The tournament matches were played in best-of-three format rather than best-of-five, but North Woods hasn’t gone to a fifth game in any of its regular-schedule matches.
The Grizzlies bounced back from a Thursday loss to Ely by opening the tournament with a 2-0 win over Northeast Range.
“We came out really strong and it was looking like we were going to have a fantastic day,” Head Coach Kandi Olson said. “And then we played Kittson County Central.”
The Bearcats took the match 2-1, and Olson said her team lost focus.
“We struggled to recover it,” she said. “We had every opportunity to win that game.”
Against their next opponent, Cromwell-Wright, North Woods lost 0-2.
“We just came out flat and couldn’t seem to kick it into gear,” Olson said. “They were a little frustrated by how they finished the second match, and that was hard to turn off.”
But the Grizzlies finished the day on a positive note, defeating Rock Ridge 2-0 and exiting the tourney with a 2-2 record.
On Monday, North Woods hit the road to take on Littlefork-Big Falls, and their 25-6 win in the first game let Olson know that she would have the opportunity to work in all of her players in this match. Playing with mixed lineups, the next two games were closer, but North Woods took them both, 25-16 and 25-19.
“In the first game we really put the ball in the right people’s hands at the right moment,” Olson said. “In the next two we realized that we had an opportunity to play everyone, which was awesome. But we definitely lost our aggressive side.”
North Woods was back home on Tuesday, defeating Cook County by scores of 25-10, 25-14, 19-25, and 25-12.
The Grizzlies have faced varied foes with different styles during this mini marathon, which has been a good thing, Olson said.
“It’s given us the opportunity to try a few different things that we haven’t been able to try in games yet, like try new defenses and offenses,” she said. “It also gave us the opportunity to see how our reserves can help us fill the gap.”
The Grizzlies have a week off following Thursday’s scheduled match at NER, providing Olson with a rare midseason opportunity. Individual skill development is something that mostly happens in the off-season, as Olson has to primarily focus on building team cohesiveness while working on different sets one the season starts.
“We have a lot of things planned that we’re going to work on and try to do,” Olson said.