Varsity girls fall in WEM tournament final to LCWM, have best match ever against Mayer Lutheran

It was a glass-is-half-full, glass-is-half-empty kind of last two outings for the varsity volleyball girls.

On the positive side, they avenged last season’s loss to Waterville-Elysian-Morristown in the Waterville tournament, beating the Buccaneers in the first game of the same tournament this year 2-0.

But after topping New Ulm Cathedral 2-1 and Fairmont 2-0 in pool play and then Lewiston-Altura 2-0 in the first round of bracket play, they fell in the championship match 2-0 to Lake Crystal-Wellcome Memorial, a team they swept on the road just three days prior. Both losses were by only three points.

On Tuesday, Mayer Lutheran made its first trip to town. The Crusaders have a long history of ending the Clipper season, including in the section championship game last year, in 2022 and 2021 and in the section semi-final in 2019, all with 3-0 sweeps. They also won a regular-season match 3-0 in Mayer in 2024.

On the optimistic side, the Clippers, still far and away the underdog, racked up more points against the Crusaders than they ever have, but from a negative POV, bogged down by communication issues and perhaps intimidated a smidge too, they didn’t play as well as they might have.

“We just let two many balls hit the floor that we were unsure about,” said head coach Dave Nixon. “We just have to follow balls to the line better. I think we can communicate better, take better ownership of the ball.”

At Waterville, the Clippers beat WEM 25-16, 25-22. From there, they faced New Ulm Cathedral, a team they beat 3-1 in their season opener. The fisty Greyhounds, who the Clippers beat 3-1 in the season opener, still took a game, but the Clippers won 25-14, 15-25, 15-10.

Finishing pool play, the Clippers won 25-14, 25-21. That victory set up the first round of bracket play, where the Clippers topped Lewiston-Altura 26-24, 25-10. In the medal game, the Clippers fell to LCWM in two games, both by three points: 25-22, 25-22.

For the tournament, Melia Sathoff had 40 kills, 47 digs and five set assists. She only missed two of 75 serves with a dozen of them aces. Taylor McCabe totaled 50 kills, 33 digs and two set assists. She had one solo ace block and three ace block assists. McCabe safely landed 26 of 29 serves with two of them for a point. Jocelyn Kortuem set up 86 points, scooped 28 digs and hit seven winners. She had three solo ace blocks and eight block assists. She made 34 of 35 serves with one of them an ace. Delaney Thompson had 50 digs, five set assist and completed all 47 of her serves with four of them aces. Luci Blaschko had 16 digs and two set assists. She made 28 of 29 serves with three aces. Kiera Schipper hit for 11 kills and had nine digs, one solo ace block and seven block assists. Maile Meissner had three kills, one set assist, three digs, three solo ace blocks and two block assists. She sent over one serve, which dropped in bounds. Aubrey Blaschko had four kills, three digs and one set assist. Kaitlyn Flowers had three digs and was 16 for 17 from the service line. Amelia Chmiel made six of seven serves. Cheyenne Lotspeich served once, and it came down in bounds. Anna Lamont and Taylor Wolf each had one dig and was two for two in serving.

Prior to Mayer’s trip to Cleveland, the Crusaders honed their skills with matches against 3A and 4A division schools. They won three of four 4A matches and one of three 3A matches. They also beat a single A and a double A school.

In the first two games, the Clippers were down early but came back and made it close at the end.

McCabe’s kill was the first point of game one. She swung for two more and Sathoff swung for one before the Crusaders went on a five-point spurt to lead 12-5.

But the Clippers won 11 of the next 14 points for a 17-15 advantage. Luci Blaschko dished an ace serve in the mix, Sathoff and McCabe each tipped over an ace, and Keira Schipper smacked two kills and extended for an ace block.

“When we pass well, we can do some things, and there were a lot of times we did pass well,” Nixon said. “I thought we did a great job defensively. Our block got better as the match went on. I think we got more confident.”

After a pair of Lutheran hitting errors, the Clippers were in front 19-16, but the Crusaders put up an ace block lasered a kill to deadlock the game 19-19.

Meissner swung for a kill that gave the Clippers a brief lead, but the Crusaders took advantage of a Clipper hit out of bounds and two kills to lead 22-20. After a Sathoff kill, the Crusaders put up an ace block and served an ace, but Sathoff hit a winner and the Crusaders sent a hit over the boundary line to all the Clippers within a point. But the game ended 25-23 when the Clippers got ticketed for a double hit.

“A couple of our decisions just weren’t like what we had talked about,” Nixon said. “We had to hit shot in certain places to keep it away from the libero. She’s an all-state player, and her sister is the setter. You don’t want to hit shots to them, and sometimes we did that a little too often, but when we were hitting shots elsewhere and being aggressive and not hitting it right above the tape at their block, we did some good things.”

Mayer got up 8-2 in game one, but the Clippers mounted a comeback from there. Aubrey Blaschko’s kill pulled them within two points, 10-8. Later, on a Luci Blaschko ace return that the net helped drop to the floor, the Clippers only trailed by a point, 14-13, but the Crusaders kept a step or two ahead after, and the game ended 25-21 on when a Mayer kill ricocheted off the palms of Clipper blockers.

Game three wasn’t as close. Mayer served six aces in the effort while a Crusader kill that caromed of the hands of Clipper blockers put an exclamation point on a 25-15 triumph.

“It was a good fight,” Nixon said. “They’re tall. They’re experienced. They’re defending champs. They’re ranked number-two in the state for a reason.”

McCabe had 10 kills in the effort. She also had nine digs, one ace block assist and one set assist. Sathoff had six kills, 10 digs, one solo ace block, one ace block assist, one set assist and two ace serves. Thompson had 15 digs and one kill. Aubrey Blaschko had one kill and one ace block assist. Meissner had one kill, one solo ace block, one ace block assist and one dig. Schipper had three kills, one solo ace block, four ace block assists and one dig. Kortuem had 19 set assists, six digs, two ace block assists, one kill and one ace serve. Luci Blaschko had three digs, one set assist and one ace serve. Flowers had one dig.

The Clippers have two conference games this week: in Nicollet on Tuesday and at home against Madelia on Thursday before they play in a tournament in Burnsville starting on Friday.

“We’ll see more competition like this (Mayer Lutheran) there,” Nixon said. “Playing a match like this helps us get ready.”

Above: Maile Meissner confronts WEM with a hit.

Melia Melia Sathoff splits two WEM defenders.