Volleyball: Gresham upended by Wabeno/Laona

Updated: 12:30 p.m., 11/1

BOWLER — The Gresham Community High School volleyball team was unable to solve Wabeno/Laona in a Division 4 sectional semifinal match on Thursday at Bowler High School.

The top-seeded Wildcats saw their magical season come to an end in a 25-12, 25-12, 25-15 loss to the second-seeded Rebels.

As she did throughout the season, Karisa Nietzer powered Gresham on the court, but Wabeno/Laona made the Wildcats work hard to earn every point and used several runs to pull away.

“Wabeno/Laona really put a lot of pressure on us and that made it a lot more challenging,” said Gresham coach Tim Wild. “Our passes weren’t as consistent and we just couldn’t get in a good rhythm offensively. And when you’re playing a good team with as many strong hitters as they have, you got to put some pressure on them when you have the ball and we didn’t have enough ball control to make them work.”

“They just kept attacking us. They went on runs and then we kind of got in our own heads,” said Nietzer, who finished with a team-leading 16 kills. “But we got out of it at times, it just went back and forth. It was just a battle against ourselves.”

The loss ended the high school careers of a talented senior class of Nietzer, Brooklyn Hoffman, Jayden Jensen, Jada James and Monique Terrio.

The group helped the team win a Central Wisconsin Conference-North Division title this fall and finish the season with a 19-7 record. Thursday’s loss was Gresham’s first since Oct. 5.

“I’d say that it was my best season of volleyball getting to play with this team. We all just worked so well together, even though we couldn’t get much going tonight, we still had a great season and always worked well together. We got really close as a team this season,” said Hoffman.

“I think when I go back and reflect on the season, I’ll think about how our team worked together,” said Jensen, who had 11 digs. “When we worked together, that’s when we played our best.”

Wabeno/Laona jumped out to a quick lead in the first set before Gresham got things going behind Nietzer, Jensen and sophomore Valarie Cerveny. The Rebels took control of the set by winning 10 straight points to go up 16-4.

Gresham played Wabeno/Laona even the rest of the set, but couldn’t string together a run to threaten the Rebels’ lead.

The second set started in a similar fashion to the first, with Wabeno/Laona taking an early lead before Nietzer earned the Wildcats a couple points to cut the deficit to one.

Again, the Rebels went on a run to take control, using a 7-0 stretch to grab a 12-4 advantage.

It seemed that every Gresham point required several big hits and near perfect play on the court. There were multiple times when the Wildcats looked like they were about to earn a big point, only to have the Rebels make a diving dig and go on to take the point.

Despite heading into the third set down 2-0 in the match, Gresham continued to battle.

Nietzer, Valarie Cerveny and junior Makayla Belongia all earned points for Gresham, but Wabeno/Laona still worked out to a 13-7 lead.

The Rebels eventually pushed their lead to 10, 20-10, before Gresham went on a 4-0 run to force Wabeno/Laona’s only timeout in the match. Nietzer had a kill and ace, while Valarie Cerveny added a tip kill during the stretch.

Wabeno/Laona finished off its sweep with a 5-1 run to advance to a sectional final.

Valarie Cerveny finished the night with 10 kills, while Belongia had 10 digs. Sophomore Hannah Cerveny set up Gresham’s attackers, tallying 22 assists in the contest.

“It was definitely an exciting year,” said Wild. “We look back at how we started the season, we were 0-4 and we finished 19-3 the rest of the way. I told the girls if they look back at the whole season, we had an outstanding year. There’s not many teams that are still playing volleyball at this time of year, and they should be really proud of what they’ve done.”

sports@newmedia-wi.com