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Mavericks stay aggressive, battle back to beat Greyhounds

ABOVE: Martin County West’s Maddie Carlson attacks the ball in front of a New Ulm Cathedral block during a Tomahawk-Valley Conference volleyball crossover match Monday at Cathedral High School in New Ulm. Photo by Travis Rosenau/New Ulm Journal.

NEW ULM — Where the New Ulm Cathedral Greyhounds wavered, the Martin County West Mavericks stayed steady on Monday night at Cathedral High School.

With a late surge of energy, the Mavericks stormed back and earned an 18-25, 25-23, 21-25, 25-14, 15-10 win in a Tomahawk-Valley Conference crossover volleyball match.

MCW was led by Emily Anderson’s 13 kills, 26 digs and two aces, while Maddie Carlson had 12 kills and 14 digs. Cami Clow added four kills and tow aces, while Emily Schettler had 28 set assists and nine digs and Courtney Anderson had 21 digs.

“In Game 2, I switched my rotation to help us better on the defense side of it and then in Games 3 and 4, it was a cheat over as the middle because they were only setting their outside,” Mavericks head coach Kayla Zehms said. “So give yourself an automatic two-block on the outside instead of hitting the hole, which they were hitting the hole, that’s what you’ve gotta do. So I allowed our middles to two-step over so that were always there with the closed block, which helped our back row and the back end be able to set it where they needed to be.”

While the Greyhounds appeared to shrug off a second-set loss and confidently cap off the third set with a block by Olivia Macho for some extra energy, things looked much different for them in the fourth set. Those same fourth-set problems the Greyhounds had reared their ugly head again in the fifth set.

“They started playing really tentative and really safe,” Greyhounds head coach Becky Wilfahrt said of her team. “Instead of finishing it out and playing aggressive like they had been to get to the point where they could have closed it out, they decided to start playing really tentative and really safe and the more tentative they played, the more errors they played. Hitters didn’t go hard, so they were swinging out and in the net, servers were putting the ball in the net, passers were second guessing themselves, so we didn’t make good passes. It was a combination of things, people just quit playing hard.”

Shay Wilfahrt led the Greyhounds with 26 kills and nine digs, while Jaylin Hartness had 12 kills, 24 digs and five aces. Ava Krueger added 10 kills, 14 digs and four aces for Cathedral, while Abbey Hillesheim had 24 set assists, Madelyn Haala had 16 set assists and Ashlyn Hillesheim had 28 digs.

After an ace serve by Macho gave the Greyhounds an early 10-2 lead to open Set 1, the Mavericks got on the board and got a 5-0 run to trail 10-7, getting their first kill of the night during the run from Anderson. The Mavericks eventually took the lead midway through the set but only led by 2 as the Greyhounds got back-to-back kills from Shay Wilfahrt to lead 21-17 and force an MCW timeout.

The Greyhounds finished the set moments later on another kill from Shay Wilfahrt.

Set 2 saw the Mavericks take control midway through with a 6-0 run that ended on a kill by Carlson for a 15-8 lead. The Greyhounds chipped away at the lead and eventually tied it at 21-all late on a net violation, but the Mavericks held on and put the set away on a kill by Gianna Chase.

Set 3 saw an early 10-3 Greyhounds lead force an MCW timeout. MCW did tie it late at 19-all on an error, but Cathedral finished the set with a kill and block from Macho.

The Mavericks took a quick 3-0 lead in Set 4 before the Greyhounds cut the deficit to 7-6 on a kill from Hartness, but that was as close as it got from there out as the Mavericks got a 7-0 run to lead 14-6. That run seemed to be the tipping point for the Mavericks. After the Greyhounds cut their deficit to 17-11, the Mavericks increased their lead to as much as 12 after that and watched a Cathedral serve into the net finish the set and set up the fifth-and-final game.

Despite a 4-0 start to the final set by Cathedral that featured a pair of Shay Wilfahrt kills and an ace from Hartness, the Mavericks hit on another 7-0 run to take the 7-4 lead. Shay Wilfahrt had another pair of kills in a row to give the Greyhounds a 9-8 lead, but that was the last time her team led as the Mavericks closed the match on a 7-1 run to win, finishing the set and match on a kill from Anderson.

“Any win’s a good win and a win in the section, a win in the conference, that’s all big for us,” Zehms said. “That’s exactly what we needed.”

The Mavericks, now 12-7, head into the final two weeks of the regular season now and will hosts Madelia in a Tomahawk-Valley Conference, Valley Division match on Thursday.

The Greyhounds (8-11) host Nicollet for a conference crossover matchup Tuesday night.

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