ELY- Earlier this year, the North Woods volleyball team was the first team to win a single set against Ely, ending a run that had lasted for the first several matches of the season. Last Friday, the Grizzles entered the Memorial High School gym resolved to end an even bigger streak, Ely’s perfect 26-0 match record for the season.
But the Timberwolves weren’t about to let that record end in front of a raucous home crowd, and while North Woods gave their all, Ely claimed their 27th match win with a 3-0 victory over the Grizzlies.
The Grizzlies put the Wolves on notice that they were in for a fight by taking an 11-7 lead in the first set on clever push shots by Hannah Kinsey, and Kinsey gave Ely fits all night in the middle of the net. But with Ely’s Sarah Visser at the service line, Kate Coughlin and Madeline Kallberg picked up scores to knot the set at 11-11. Unfazed, North Woods went back up by three, 15-12, but the Wolves pulled even again at 15-15. The Grizzlies went up by two, 17-15, but Ely’s Hannah Penke hammered a kill to put the ball in the hands of Kallberg at the service line. Penke scored again on a clever loft shot that gave Ely a lead they wouldn’t relinquish at 18-17. The Wolves went up by four, and a Grizzlies’ rally came up short as Ely claimed the first set 25-22.
The second set was another neck-and-neck battle, with the Grizzlies’ getting a big block from Karah Scofield on a Penke kill attempt to give North Woods a 6-5 lead. But Lilli Rechichi tied the score with a kill and then stepped to the service line to fire a couple of aces as the Wolves scored five consecutive points to that a 10-6 lead. North Woods refused to go away, staying within two to three points and drawing to within on at 17-18 on a Tori Olson ace. But that’s as close as it got as the Wolves closed out set two on a 7-2 run to win 25-19.
Fighting for their playoff lives, the Grizzlies took a 6-5 lead with Kinsey controlling the middle and Lauren Burnett getting a big kill. But a confident Timberwolves crew snatched the lead back, and with Visser serving forged a 13-7 advantage. Kinsey got a kill to momentarily stop, but a Kallberg score gave the ball right back to the Wolves. Ely capitalized on a few Grizzlies miscues and got scores on a kill and a block from Rechichi to take their biggest lead of the match at 17-8. While Olson fired three consecutive aces for the Grizzlies to pull within five, 18-13, North Woods simply didn’t have the firepower to claw back any closer as the Wolves rolled to a 25-16 win and a berth in the Section 7A semifinals against South Ridge.
The Grizzlies presented a tough challenge that should help the Wolves as they advance, Ely Head Coach Megan Wognum said.
“North Woods always puts up a really good fight,” Wognum said. “It’s great that we have a competitive game so that we kind of keep our feet grounded, and so that we’re ready for the next game. There are learning opportunities in there. There’s plenty of things I wrote down today that we’re going to be working on on Monday.”
A season-long strength of this Ely team has been their ability to celebrate their accomplishments while knowing that there’s still room to learn and grow as a team.
“These girls have a huge passion for volleyball,” Wognum said. “Focus comes along with that passion. You can’t coach that, they have to learn that as they play, and they’ve really grown in that department this year.
Grizzlies Head Coach Kandi Olson praised her squad’s effort.
“Our goal was to create chaos on their side, and I think we did that successfully for a long time, Olson said. “If we were going to go down, we were going to go down kicking and screaming. We were going to play our hearts out until the end and I think you saw that on the court tonight.”
Olson also had good things to say about Kinsey’s performance.
“The growth of Hannah in just the last two weeks has been tremendous,” Olson said. “She kicked into a different mindset and you could see it out there. What a way to go out. I told her that was a highlight reel night.”
North Woods ended its season at 15-10.
Penke topped the Wolves in kills with 13, followed by Kate Coughlin with nine, Kallberg with eight, and Rechichi with seven. Visser had 24 set assists, six more than Kallberg with 18. Kate Coughlin collected 13 digs, one more than the 12 picked up by Rachel Coughlin.
Ely was scheduled to be on the court again on Wednesday with a semifinal matchup against South Ridge in Hibbing. Ely defeated the Panthers 2-1 in a regular-season tournament match. A win would put the Wolves in Saturday’s championship game on Saturday at Hermantown High School against the winner of the Floodwood-Nashwauk-Keewatin semifinal, both teams Ely defeated in the regular season.