Suring splits matches at volleyball triangular

The Suring High School volleyball team topped Gillett and fell to Coleman during a Marinette & Oconto Conference triangular on Sept. 27 in Gillett.

The Eagles lost to Coleman by scores of 26-24, 25-22, 25-27, 13-25, 15-12 before taking down Gillett 25-21, 25-15, 22-25, 26-24.

Gillett finished 0-2 after also falling to Coleman 25-11, 25-10, 25-13.

Suring’s comeback falls short against Coleman

The second match of the triangular pitted Suring and Coleman against each other.

The theme of the match was Suring jumping out to leads, but struggling to finish off Coleman.

Suring led 16-11 in set one after a 5-0 run behind strong serving from McKenzie Chesterfield. The Eagles later led 21-17, but a 6-0 Coleman spurt put the Cougars ahead. Suring tied things at 23 and again at 24, but Coleman had back-to-back kills to win the set.

In the second set, Suring fell behind by six points, but went on a 7-1 run to tie things up. The Eagles surged ahead behind a couple kills from Christine Sleeter before Coleman rallied to tie the set at 19. Chesterfield and Sleeter each tallied kills late in the set, but a couple Eagle errors allowed Coleman to go up 2-0 in the match.

“Sometimes we were really positive and sometimes there was a lack of communication, and that made it really hard to hold the lead,” said Chesterfield on the up-and-down match against Coleman.

“So for the Coleman match I would say that we didn’t communicate with each other and we would just watch balls drop most of the time,” said Sleeter. “Then when we would mess up, we would all get in our heads.”

Suring showed great resiliency in the next couple sets to tie the match back up.

The Eagles led 13-9 in set three, but Coleman scored six straight to power ahead. Suring got things tied back up behind a couple points from Sleeter and soon the team led 19-16.

The teams continued to trade mini runs, with Coleman catching up before Suring would build a couple point advantage again. A Coleman block landed out of bounds to put Suring ahead and then a Cougar error on the serve receive gave the Eagles the set.

Set four was all Suring, with the Eagles using 5-0 and 7-0 runs to build an 11-point cushion, 16-5. This time, Suring didn’t let up.

Just when the Eagles had all the momentum, the break between the fourth and fifth sets gave Coleman time to regroup, and the Cougars scored the first five points of the tie-breaking set.

Suring fought back within a point on a couple of occasions, but wasn’t able to ever fully recover from the early deficit.

Suring bounces back against Gillett

The final match of the night was between Suring and Gillett.

Suring led by as many as five early on in set one, but Gillett responded to tighten things up before the conference foes battled back and forth.

A Sleeter kill capped a 3-0 run that moved Suring from down a point to up two, 22-20. Two more Sleeter kills followed by a Gillett error finished off the first set.

“Against Gillett I would say we hustled a little better and talked a little better and were able to push to a win,” said Sleeter.

Gillett scored the first two points in the second set, with Hailey Elsner getting an early kill, but Suring took control of the set with a 9-0 run. Chesterfield got a kill to start the run and then was serving the final eight points. Sleeter added a couple more kills during the spurt.

The Tigers continued to battle, but the Eagles’ early advantage was too much to overcome.

The teams split the first 20 points of set three before Gillett went on a 5-1 run to grab the lead. The Eagles eventually caught up to the Tigers after a 4-0 run as Sleeter served, but a Suring attack error followed by a point from Grace Baer helped the hosts surge back ahead.

Gillett’s Mia Soper served a couple aces after a timeout, but Suring’s Bailey Stuart and Chesterfield had kills to keep Suring alive. Bella Matczak scored to end the set and extend the match for the Tigers.

“We just kept communicating and talking and it just made everything better,” said Elsner of the Tigers’ improved play as the night went on.

“I think going back to the Coleman game and seeing what we did wrong really helped us to play against this Suring team, and then watching Suring and Coleman play so we could get a hang of everything. We were just more of a team against Suring.”

Set four was another back-and-forth battle, with the Tigers using 4-0 and 3-0 runs in the middle of it to take leads. Sleeter went on a personal 3-0 run to tie things for the Eagles.

The lead continued to shift, with the teams tied at 19, 21, 22, 23 and 24. Sleeter delivered a kill to get Suring within a point of victory, and then a Gillett receive error ended the tight match.

Sleeter finished Suring’s two matches with 26 attack kills, 11 block kills, 12 assists, nine digs and seven aces. Chesterfield had 13 attack kills and 12 aces, while Stuart had 12 digs and 10 attack kills.

Macie Reed led the Eagles with 27 assists, while MaShya Seefeldt had 16. Emma Kristof led the team with 11 digs, while Trinity Remic tallied nine.

Gillett falls to Coleman

Gillett couldn’t get much going in its loss to Coleman to start the night.

The Tigers fell behind 9-1 in set one and never could recover. A Baer kill followed by an ace from Matczak to trim the deficit to 13, 22-9, was the only time in the set where Gillett scored two straight points.

Gillett scored the first two points in set two, but Coleman rattled off 11 straight points to seize control. Elsner recorded a couple kills to get the Tigers going, but the Cougars eventually pulled away.

In set three, it was more of the same, with Coleman jumping out to a 10-3 advantage. Several of Gillett’s points came on Coleman errors, but eventually the Cougars finished off the set.

For the day, Fisher totaled 10 kills and 12 digs for Gillett. Elsner added six kills and four aces, while Matczak and Soper had five kills each. Soper also had 18 digs and six aces.

Matczak posted a team-leading 20 digs, while Reece Franti had 12. Baer chipped in four kills and 14 digs.

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