Cedar falls in SubDistrict title game thriller

CROFTON - Cedar Catholic was the third seed in the C2-5 Sub-District Volleyball Tournament here on Oct. 24, which the seeding didn’t matter.

The Lady Trojans had been notorious over the past couple of years about getting better as the season went along and playing a brutal schedule.

Well, in the sub-district final here, they ran into a team in the same boat, the Crofton Lady Warriors.

The Lady Warriors entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed and did nothing to disparage that seeding, sweeping their first match in the affair over Ponca before taking on Cedar Catholic in a sub-district final.

The Lady Trojans took it past the sprint to 15 in set five before falling in the match, 21-25, 25-13, 22-25, 25-16 and 16-14.

“We were playing our best volleyball at the end of the season,” Cedar Catholic coach, Denae Buss said. “It’s our goal every year, we had our ups and downs this season, but I felt like we were playing our best volleyball at the end.”

After finishing last year’s season with a Class D1 state title with a dramatic win over Norfolk Catholic in that final, the coach realizes her humble beginnings in the sport and still appreciates the journey from beginning to end.

“It was great to see all the work come together,” said the coach. “The determination and the volleyball IQ on the court helped us to play our best volleyball.”

The Lady Trojans opened the gates strong to come away with a 25-21 win in set one.

A horrible second set evened the match before Cedar Catholic went up 2-1 in set three with the 25-22 win.

The Lady Warriors responded again in set four with a 25-16 victory before the final set to 15.

The teams battled back-and-forth in the set with the Lady Trojans falling just short by the 16-14 final.

“We are very sad to see the season ended but lots of memories were made with this group,” Buss said. “I hope they hold on to those memories and the lessons they learned throughout the season.”

Both the setters in the match recorded a double-double and Melayna McGregor was one dig away from a triple-triple.

McGregor finished with a team-best 14 kills, 20 set-assists and nine digs to just miss the double-digit triple and Lyndsey Hamilton had 25 assists and 10 digs.

Lauren Bernecker added 10 winners, Lexi Eickhoff registered eight, Addison Walter had seven and Grace Wortmann had five to round out a fairly balanced attack.

McGregor hit three ace serves, Katy Jones added a couple.

Jones led the team with 24 digs and had 32 successful balls passed on to the offense.

Annika Kuehn had a dozen digs and McKinlee Lammers and Kuehn had 18 and 16 good passes respectively.

Cedar Catholic finished the season with a 17-15 record while Crofton went on to win a district title to move on to Lincoln with a sweep of Freeman in the district final to improve to 21-8.

Crofton 21 25 22 25 16 Cedar 25 13 25 16 14 CEDAR CATHOLIC (17-15): Grace Wortmann 5k, 2b, 3d, 6r; Annika Kuehn 1a, 12d, 16r; Lexi Eickhoff 8k, 4b, 1d; Lauren Bernecker 10k, 6b, 4d, 2r; Katelyn Arens 4k, 3b, 1d, 1r; McKinlee Lammers 8d, 18r; Lyndsey Hamilton 1k, 10d, 25s; Melayna McGregor 14k, 3a, 9d, 20s, 5r; Addison Walter 7k, 1a, 5b, 7d; Brynn Bernecker 1k;