Witt-Birn volleyball team headed to state

Chargers top Edgar in sectional final
By: 
Morgan Rode
Sports Editor

The Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School volleyball team has enjoyed sustained success over the past several seasons, with Central Wisconsin Conference-East Division titles, plenty of player and coach accolades, and big number of wins along the way.

The Chargers accomplished something this past week that’s never been done in school history, though. Witt-Birn swept Weyauwega-Fremont (25-17, 25-12, 25-17) in a sectional semifinal match in Wittenberg and then rallied past Edgar (25-20, 19-25, 12-25, 25-19, 15-13) in a sectional title match in Auburndale to qualify for state for the first time.

“When you play high school sports, you dream as a little kid to make it to state, and you don’t know how hard it really is until you’re a coach,” said Witt-Birn coach Becky Rew. “These girls did it. It’s so hard, it’s so hard to be the first ones … Nothing is better than being the first one. It’s great anytime, but being the first ones, that’s awesome.”

Qualifying for state looked bleak after the Chargers fell behind against Edgar after dropping sets two and three. Witt-Birn controlled the fourth set to extend the match and then did just enough in set five to advance.

London Metropulos was serving to start the fifth set, and after a couple Edgar errors, kill from Reese Rogowski and block, the Chargers were up 4-0. Edgar rallied and tied the match at five, forcing a Witt-Birn timeout.

After splitting the next two points, freshman Melaina Granquist delivered a big kill to put the Chargers back ahead. An Edgar attack error was followed by a Wildcat kill to make it an 8-7 Charger lead.

Metropulos continued her huge match with back-to-back kills, and after another Edgar error, Witt-Birn was up four and only four points from advancing.

The match was far from over though, as Edgar won three straight points to get within a point, 11-10. Two Metropulos kills sandwiched a Charger error, making it 13-11.

After an Edgar timeout, Metropulos went back to serve. The serve was long and was ruled out of bounds, with the Charger faithful begging for an Edgar touch to no avail. Edgar then delivered a kill to tie the match at 13 and force the final Witt-Birn timeout.

Rogowski had an attack kill to give the Chargers a one-point advantage and then got her hand on an Edgar tip attempt to block the ball down to the floor and send Witt-Birn to state for the first time ever.

“It’s so surreal, I can’t even believe it’s happening,” said Rogowski on making state. “I never would have imagined something like this when I was a freshman.”

“It’s crazy,” said Lilly Betry, another senior on a roster that has six. “It’s so nice that it’s our last year, too. This is the way we’re going to go out. It’s just amazing.”

“Literally everything, it’s crazy,” said senior Kiara Deruchowski. “Our team has worked so hard for this, and to be a senior and go to state is absolutely amazing.”

Witt-Birn received a No. 4 seed for the state tournament and will take on No. 1 seed Howards Grove on Nov. 4 at the Resch Center in Green Bay. No. 2 St. Croix Falls and No. 3 Randolph make up the rest of the Division 3 bracket.

The moments after Rogowski delivered the match-sealing point was a bag of mixed emotions for the Chargers. After initial screams and yells of joy, some players broke down in tears. Others were smiling ear-to-ear, while some were simply in shock.

“This team here this year is super close,” said Metropulos. “We’re super good friends at school, so it really helps bring that into volleyball. The seniors have been playing volleyball their entire lives, we just want to do our best for them so we can see them happy and successful.”

The team’s strong bond and connection was evident at the start of the match against Edgar, as the team was able to overcome a few mistakes and go on a run during the middle of the set.

Metropulos, Rogowski, Granquist and senior Payton Foster all recorded kills when the Chargers turned a tied match at 8 into a 16-11 lead. After Edgar tied it back up, Rogowski caught fire late to help the Chargers take the set.

Set two started in a similar fashion to set one before things went off the rails for Witt-Birn. Edgar used a 9-0 run to grab a 17-10 lead. Witt-Birn got things going a bit more late in the set, but it was too little, too late at that point.

Set three began with Edgar winning seven of the first eight points and eventually going up 16-4. The Chargers split the final 16 points of the set, creating some momentum to build off of.

The Chargers continued to play better in set four, and had a 9-5 lead after kills from Granquist and Metropulos. Edgar got back within a point before the Chargers rattled off a 9-1 run to seize control. Rogowski led the team on the spurt, with Foster and junior Layla Huffman adding in timely kills.

Edgar tried to rally late but points from Foster, Huffman and Rogowski finished things off.

“In the second and third sets, we weren’t talking as much, we were letting balls drop. We had to take time, take a deep breath, pick ourselves up and stop being so down,” said Foster.

“Many of us knew this could be the last game, so we’re like, ‘OK, if this is going to be the last game, go out and play our best that we possibly can so we can continue or not,” said Betry. “Either/or, we just needed to finish strong.”

Finish strong the Chargers did, and now the team — with seniors Rogowski, Foster, Betry, Deruchowski, Allison Linke and Halle Beversdorf — will get at least one more match together.

Minutes after the match ended, Rew and the players didn’t really have any specific goals laid out for state.

“We’ll figure that out later on, we’re just happy we made it,” said Rogowski while laughing.

Rew simply wants to team to soak it all in and enjoy it all.

The team’s sectional semifinal match against CWC-East foe Weyauwega-Fremont was a lot less stressful than the match against Edgar.

Witt-Birn dominated from pretty much start to finish. Everything was clicking for the Chargers, and they left little doubt on their way to a sweep.

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