With losses to perennial power Mayer Lutheran in three of the last four section 2A championships, no team has been more deserving to win the section tournament than the Cleveland girls.
Tonight, the Clippers got what they deserved when they upset top-seeded Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart on the St. Peter High School court for their first ever 2A title and trip to the state tournament.
The triumph didn’t come easily though, and for half of the match, it looked like they were dead on arrival. They fell in the first two games and had to come back in games three and four before winning a see-saw rubber game by the narrowest margin possible: two points.
“It is surreal,” said head coach Dave Nixon. “We hung in there and beat a team with a lot of seniors (six out of 11 on the team) who know how to compete.”
The match started inauspiciously for the Clippers when they hit out of bounds to hand the first point to the Mustangs, and, taking advantage of a couple of kills and Clipper errors, they went on to lead 5-2.
With a pair of Taylor McCabe kills, the Clippers spurted four-straight points to lead 6-5, but after a hit out of bounds and a Mustang kill, they never were in front again.
“We were on the struggle bus, and just couldn’t get off it,” Nixon said.
Taking six of seven points, including four kills and an ace serve, the Mustangs went on the warpath to widen their lead, 18-10. Winning 13 of the next 20 points, the Clippers showed they still had a pulse, but the game ended 25-23 when a Clipper hit sailed past the boundary line.
“BLHS did a lot of great things,” Nixon said. “They have a lot of great players who made it really hard to defend, and their blocking was there. We weren’t doing our best, and part of that is because BLHS has so many great athletes.”
The Mustangs won the first point of game two on a Clipper double hit infraction and never were behind from there. It ended 25-18 on a Clipper hit out of bounds.
“We were not competing like how we competed over the last month,” Nixon said. “We just had to step it up.”
After the Mustangs won nine of the first 11 points of game three, it looked like they were going to sweep, but Nixon told the girls to just survive.”
“Our backs were against the wall, but we just had to keep fighting, survive through the struggle and start playing the game like we’re capable of playing.”
And starting with a McCabe winner, the Clippers worked their way back, tying the game at 13 on a carry infraction, winning the next point on a hit out of bounds and then going up 15-13 on a McCabe kill.
“The girls showed a lot of resilience,” Nixon said. “Not much was going in our direction. But the longer that match went on, the more things went the Clippers’ way.”
With a couple more McCabe kills in their onslaught, the Clippers led 19-15. On the attack, the Mustangs won the next three points. It looked like a McCabe deep hit from the middle put the Clippers up 20-18, but the refs said the ball didn’t stay in bounds, and the point went to BLHS.
The Mustangs’ ensuing serve cruised out of bounds, but with two kills and an ace serve, they led 22-20, and it looked like the end for the Clippers was near. But Maile Meissner swung for a kill from the middle, and Melia Sathoff tipped down an ace to stalemate the game at 22. The Mustangs responded with a kill, but after a Sathoff kill and a BLHS line infraction, the game ended 25-23 on a Sathoff kill.
Starting a seven-point Clipper run, McCabe followed an ace tip with a kill to stalemate game four at 14 apiece before Meissner, in what was the match turning point, slugged a winner to put the Clippers in front by a point. They never looked back from there.
“Maile came up with some big kills, when we needed them,” Nixon said. “We needed production from everybody because our outsides drew a lot of attention because we sent them so much. We talked about middles and right sides: ‘whatever you can give us is going to be so big because they’re not going to be keying on them.'”
Meissner said she felt ‘down and out’ after the first two games, but McCabe and setter Jocelyn Kortuem pulled her out of the funk.
“Every time I got down, Taylor came up and took my hand and said to take a deep breath. You’ve got it. And Jocelyn was like ‘I know that you can do it. I have so much faith in you. Keep your head up.’”
After a McCabe kill, a Kortuem ace block and a Mustang hit out of bounds, McCabe rolled a hit along the net that descended to the floor for a 19-14 Clipper advantage. Down the stretch, McCabe hit a winner and served an ace, and Sathoff hit for a point before she swung again for a 25-21 Cleveland victory.
With the match at two apiece, the Clippers went into game five for only the second time this season. The first was way back on September 4 at Granada.
The lead swung back and forth in the rubber game. With the Mustangs leading 11-10, Sathoff’s one-handed push didn’t quite stay in bounds, but she reached for an ace block on the following point.
The Mustangs extended their lead with a kill, but McCabe drilled back-to-back winners for a 13-13 stalemate.
“Their block was really big, and it was hard to see them when you were hitting,” McCabe said. “So it was helpful that (libero) Delaney (Thompson) in the back row was yelling what was open and Dave yelling.”
The Mustangs dropped down a tip to take the following point, but after a McCabe kill and a Mustang hit into the net, the Clippers won the game and match on a BLHS lifting penalty.
Meissner recognized the match could have easily gone either way.
“It was on hope and prayers. We’ve just got to get that one pass, that one set, that one kill. And I didn’t even know the whistle had blown until we were on the (celebration) pile.”
McCabe smashed 36 kills. Sathoff had 24 kills. Meissner had five kills. Kortuem had four kills. Keira Schipper had two kills. Aubrey Blaschko had one kill.
Kortuem set up 58 Clipper points. Thompson had seven set assists. McCabe and Schipper each assisted one point.
McCabe reached for two solo ace blocks. Sathoff had one solo ace block. Kortuem had one ace block assist. Schipper dropped down one solo ace block and one block assists. Blaschko had one solo ace block.
Kortuem hoisted 26 digs. Sathoff and Thompson each scooped 25 digs. McCabe shoveled 22 digs. Luci Blaschko lifted 10 digs. Aubrey Blaschko boosted three digs. Schipper raised four digs. Liviana Lee scraped one dig.
The Clippers missed five serves, and with every point a potential difference maker, they loomed large. But Sathoff, McCabe, Kortuem and Kaitlyn McCabe each served one ace.
There are no seniors on the Clipper team. Leaping up to varsity as an eighth grader, Sathoff, now a junior, has been on the team longest. She had 66 kills her rookie year, which ended on a second-straight loss to Mayer Lutheran in the section championship. While the entire match against BLHS didn’t go her way, she came up with some powerful winners when the Clippers needed them.”
“We all have each other’s backs,” she said. “Sometimes we don’t play our best, but we push through it. Before every point, we told each other ‘we’ve got this.’”
Nixon thought state seedings come out on Sunday as some section finals are on Saturday. All matches for the three-day tournament are played at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul (formerly known as Xcel Energy Center). The quarterfinals for the eight section winners start on Thursday, November 6 at either 5:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. There is a consolation bracket and a third-place match, so each team is guaranteed two matches.
Above: Taylor McCabe and Delaney Thompson raise the section championship trophy.
Aubrey Blaschko passes along the net.
Jocelyn Kortuem and Keira Schipper team up on a block.
Taylor McCabe slammed 36 kills.
Anna Kawatski-Klein and Samantha Baker cheered on the Clippers from the student section.
Kaitlyn Flowers bumps a pass.
Elated and exhausted, the Clippers piled on the floor after the win.
The student section came straight to the game from the duck blind.
The section champion Clippers, from L-R, front row: Assistant coach Madisyn Schrom, Sierra Lotspeich, Amelia Chmiel, Luci Blaschko, Delaney Thompson, Taylor McCabe, Natalie Flowers, Taylor Wolf, Valentina Rohlfing and manager Olivia Reinhardt. Back row: statistician Neenah Lassiter, manager Mollie Bowman, Ava Kluntz, Anna Lamont, Keira Schipper, Melia Sathoff, Maile Meissner, Cheyenne Lotspeich, Aubrey Blaschko, Jocelyn Kortuem, Kaitlyn Flowers, head coach Dave Nixon and assistant coach April Thompson.