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The Ely high school volleyball team ran into a buzzsaw Thursday night and fell 3-0 (25-17, 25-20, 25-16) to Minneota in a State quarterfinal at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
Ely will face New Life Academy in the consolation round on Friday at 3 p.m. The Wolves won the consolation bracket last year to finish fifth in the state.
No. 2 seed Minneota jumped out to a 5-1 lead with the Wolves struggling to get their momentum going early. While Ely has been to State the past two years, the big stage took time to adjust to. After the Vikings went up 12-5, Ely closed the gap to 15-11 and Minneota called time out.
The Wolves got within two, 15-13, on back-to-back errors by the Vikings and blocks by Lilli Rechichi, Amelia Penke and Charlotte Hegman. Then Minneota went on a 6-1 run to lead 21-14 and head coach Megan Wognum had to take her second time out. The Vikings were just too much and the Wolves lost 25-17 in the first set.
Ely had a better second set, leading 5-31 early on an ace by Sadie Rechichi and a kill by Lilli Rechichi. The two teams battled back and forth and Ely led 18-16 lead on a kill by Audrey Kallberg, forcing Minneota to take a time out.
The Vikings reeled off four straight points to lead 20-18 but Ely wouldn’t give up with an ace by Clare Thomas tying it up at 20-20. Then the Vikings really changed the game, reeling off five straight to take the second set 25-20.
Needing a win to stay alive, the Ely fans got louder at the start of the third set. The Wolves went up 8-6 and it looked like the tide was going to turn. Minneota took over, however, and went up 12-8 on kills by their two big guns.
Wognum took a time out at 15-10 to get her team back on track. It worked. Ely took the next two points and the Vikings took a time out. The Wolves closed the gap to 16-15 and Minneota took another time out. That one did the trick.
The Vikings, behind a Skol chant from their fans, went on a 9-1 run as the Wolves ran out of gas and fell 25-16.
Lilli Rechichi had 11 kills for Ely and Gretta Lowe called 27 set assists. Audrey Kallberg had eight kills while Charlotte Hegman and Clare Thomas each had five, respectively.
Wognum was asked in a press conference afterward what was different from the first time the two teams met earlier this season in a Class A tournament in the Cities.
“I think our defense has come a really long way in the last month and a half, the way that we played tonight is phenomenal,” said Wognum. “There are a few things that we could probably button up a little bit offensively, but I was so impressed. I mean, Claire had, what, three pancakes in the first few sets, she left it all on the floor tonight, and she deserves recognition for that.”
Thomas agreed. “We just put it all the floor and we were moving really well together.”
Lowe said, “I think we've been working really hard all season playing scrappy and we showed that tonight.”
When Ely would make a run, Minneota found a way to bounce back.
“I think the difference was that we just made a few errors. We were hitting into a bigger block. We're not used to seeing that in our section, so it was really good for us to be able to manipulate that a little bit more, but it took us a little bit to catch onto it,” said Wognum.
Kallberg gave her thoughts on the night as well. “We were getting blocked more than we do in our section, but I thought we picked up our blocks really well,” said Kallberg.
Wognum was asked about the differences in coming back to the state tournament for the third straight year.
“I think we have quite a few girls that have been here a time or two and it definitely helps kind of wrangling our younger ones and the ones that haven't experienced that, and it helps keep us grounded a little bit. It's an intimidating experience. It's a lot, it's a big court out there. It's a lot of lights on you, it's people, it's a lot of pressure, so I think that just having our feet grounded a little bit more coming into the third year helps,” said Wognum
Wognum also responded to a question about the level of competition in Section 7 compared to the State Tournament and how teams like Minneota can have a tougher schedule.
“We live in Northern Minnesota and it is what it is. We are happy to be playing volleyball, we're happy to have the competition that we do, but definitely it would be nice to have some more challenging teams that are on our schedule. Being at the Class A Tournament in Burnsville makes a huge difference, just being able to see Minneota, Fillmore Central some of these teams that we're seeing at state now gets us prepared for the competition here. You know, I'd love to have 10 more games like that, but we're gonna take what we can get and we're gonna make the most of it.”
