ELY — Not in our house.
That’s the message the Ely Timberwolves had for visiting North Woods on Tuesday after losing a shaky second set before roaring back to win the rivalry match 3-1.
With the Grizzlies sporting a record of 14-2 and the 10-7 Wolves always tough on their home court, rowdy fans expected a barnburner, and the first set did not disappoint.
North Woods took an early 3-2 lead, but with Amelia Penke at serve the Wolves turned the tables and went up 8-4.
It was a heated battle from there as neither team could hold serve for more than two points at a time, with an Izzy Pascuzzi kill pulling North Woods within two at 22-20. A subsequent Ely miscue made it a one-point game. But the Wolves held off the North Woods threat and closed out a 25-23 win.
That made what happened in the second set inexplicable. With the North Woods offense thriving on the arm of Pascuzzi, the Grizzles raced out to a 9-3 lead and continued to pour on the heat, taking a whopping 17-5 advantage on an ace by Lauren Burnett. The Grizzlies cruised from there for a surprisingly easy 25-14 win to even the match.
North Woods carried that momentum into the third with Burnett again at serve. A Carsyn Burnett block got the Grizzlies started on a seven-point blitz to begin the set, with the Wolves finally scoring on a kill by Sadie Rechichi after an Ely time out.
That turned what promised to be a North Woods runaway into a slow, steady climb back into the game. A big block by Ely’s Violet Udovich and Makenzi Huntington followed by a pair of North Woods errors tied the set at 16-16. Ely went up for good at 18-17 on a Penke kill, and what earlier had looked like a Grizzlies runaway turned into a 25-20 Wolves win.
The ship righted and the Wolves now firmly in control, they turned up the heat in the fourth, overwhelming the Grizzlies early to take a 14-3 lead, with Peyton Huntington and Penke both having strong turns at serve. And when Ely has an 11-point lead at home with the match on the line, the script writes itself from there, and it did, with the Wolves cruising to a 25-16 win and the 3-1 victory.
Rechichi led the Wolves in kills with 11, just one more than Lydia Shultz. The Wolves also got good production from Penke, with seven, and Charlotte Hegman with six. Gretta Lowe facilitated the offense with 25 set assists. Rechichi also led the team in digs with 15, again one ahead of Shultz. Hegman had six block assists and Udovich had five and a solo block.
For North Woods, Pascuzzi was the big gun at the net, slamming down 19 kills, while Lauren Burnett added eight. Carsyn Burnett put up 22 assists, and Tessa Burnett led the team in digs with six.