The Decorah volleyball team (12-6, 1-2 NEIC) hosted its own tournament Saturday and took the title by going 6-0 for the day. South Winn (13-12, 3-1 UIC) also competed in the tournament and finished third.
Decorah
Decorah started the day by defeating MFL MarMac 2-0 (21-13, 21-5). Then the Vikes flew by Kingsland 2-0 (21-9, 21-16) and finished pool play with 2-0 win over South Winn by identical 21-19 sets.
In bracket play, Decorah won over Riceville 2-0 (21-19, 21-19). It was another close battle with the SW Warriors that the Vikes won 2-1 (21-15, 19-21, 17-15). In the championship match Decorah earned the title 2-0 by sets of 21-19 and 23-21 over Jesup.
“I felt that we played fairly consistently throughout the day. We worked ourselves out of a couple of sets where we allowed a hole to be dug. I was proud of our girls for coming together, believing in themselves and working through the challenge,” said Viking head coach Gina Holthaus.
Warriors
The Warriors nearly captured the title after six solid matches of volleyball on Saturday. SW advanced out of pool play to the championship bracket going 2-1. The Warriors defeated Kingsland 2-0 (21-10, 21-9) and MFL MarMac (21-17, 21-11) before dropping two sets to the hosts in two 19-21 sets.
In the championship bracket, the Warriors came out on fire in the first set against Jesup, putting together one of their best sets of the year taking down Jesup 21-9. Jesup quickly responded and captured the second 21-17 and then the deciding set to post the victory 15-10. The Warriors then faced Decorah in the second match and came up just short as they took the Vikings to a deciding set and couldn’t win on a couple of opportunities on match point, falling 17-15 after splitting 15-21 and 21-19. The Warriors would secure third place in the final match of the day with the sweep over Riceville 21-14 and 21-17.
“We really looked forward to this tournament knowing we would find ourselves in a number of close matches. At times, we were really clicking and showing ourselves what we were capable of, but unfortunately we lacked a bit of consistency in some phases of the game to push forward in a couple of matches. I give a lot of credit to our girls as we implemented some new rotations today and shuffled players into different spots and they handled themselves really well with that,” said SW head coach Alex Smith.
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