Wynot girls are happy for return trip to State
LINCOLN — The Pinnacle Bank Arena volleyball court is becoming a very familiar place for the Wynot Lady Blue Devils.
The Lady Blue Devils are set for a Class D-2 State Tournament date 9 a.m. Thursday at Pinnacle Bank Arena’s North Court and will take on No. 2 seed CWC (31-1).
The No. 7 seeded Wynot girls now must raise their performance level to beat a tough CWC squad.
“They have some height and some experience,” Wynot Coach Tammy Wieseler said. “They move around from D2 to D1, so they also have some experience in the postseason.”
The key to success for any team at state is to play good competitive volleyball every match, she said.
“You need your team to all play well every game and not a couple players one game and a couple players another game,” she said.
One of those players, Karley Heimes, said that even though the girls played the District final earlier in the day – 11 a.m. – the squad was ready to go and could have played at any time.
“We played pretty well for a morning game,” Heimes said. “So, it worked out.”
Wynot is here despite having two weeks of matches being canceled due to COVID-19 and finding a way to overcome a historic and scary period in history.
“COVID has made the season challenging for every team especially if you were a team in quarantine for any part of the season,” Wieseler said. “But teams are still playing and that is a good thing.”
Heimes said it was a difficult time – taking those two COVID weeks off, but the girls found a way to battle forward.
“We were itching to get back in the gym and then we kept winning and all we were thinking about was the District final game and if we would get there and go to State,” Heimes said. “We are really happy about it and we were excited and pumped up.”
Heimes said now the team wants to better last year’s finish. After surviving the hiccup of a season’s break due to the virus, it’s now a case of bring it on.
“We are going to lay it all on the line and see what happens,” she said. “(The COVID layoff) defined our mindset and our focus on volleyball. Over quarantine we had meetings on Zoom, we played games and we’d work out to keep our minds focused on what we wanted to become at the end of the year. That’s gotten us to where we have gotten today.”
That, and also the fact that girls athletics continue to reign in Wynot.
“Since we were little we’ve been looking up at our high schoolers and how much success that they’ve had and we wanted to keep us rolling,” Heimes said. “Our coaches are very good, and they push us hard every day to be the best we can be. It’s half luck and good athletes coming up and we have more coming too.That’s good for us.”
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