DSHA, Oconomowoc roll through semifinals to set up Division 1 state title rematch

ASHWAUBENON - In a rematch of last season’s state championship, the Divine Savior Holy Angels Dashers and Oconomowoc Raccoons will face off again for the WIAA Division 1 title in girls volleyball. The top two respective teams took different approaches to the Friday night semifinals, with the Dashers rolling over the Sussex Hamilton Chargers in straight sets, while the Raccoons were pushed to four sets (including an extended first) by the Appleton North Lightning.

DSHA defeated Hamilton (25-16, 25-20, 25-7) while the Raccoons lost the first set 27-29 before winning the next three 25-16, 25-10, 25-21.

DSHA too strong to overcome

Before fans could even find their seats, the Dashers had gone up 7-0 on the Chargers. Hamilton was forced to use two timeouts before it had even scored its second point, at 12-1. After a 9-6 Hamilton run made it 18-10 the Chargers felt they could push DSHA. That proved to be the case again, when facing match point at 24-11, the Dashers let Hamilton chip into the lead.

After a push from the Chargers, led by Holly Hawthorne, the Dashers notched set point on a kill by Madison Quest.

“Madison Quest, I’m not sure how many kills she had, I stopped counting,” Hamilton coach Traci Buhr joked. Quest finished the match with 18 kills, two less than needed to break into the top 5 of most kills in a state tournament match. “She’s close to that record again. Thank God we didn’t give it to her.”

The final kill of the first set was a reminder to the Chargers that Quest, who is committed to Wisconsin, and DSHA could take over the match at a moment’s notice.

Behind the serving of Emily Zgonc, the Chargers were able to take advantage of Dashers mistakes, find some soft spots in their zone and jump out to a 4-0 lead in the second set. If the first set was a freight train, this was a grudge match, featuring six ties.

The Dashers and Hamilton faced each other early in the season, with the Chargers falling, 3-2. That match gave both teams a lot of information about one another that manifested itself Friday night.

“We had an amazing scouting report on them (earlier in the year),” Buhr said, “and I feel that they really took the knowledge from that first match and improved on the areas that we had exposed them on and it just made a team that was the top in the nation even better. They have a lot of pressure on them and I thought they absolutely brought their A-game.

“We wanted them to have to earn it and they did.”

Quest echoed the statement from the DSHA side, explaining how they prepared for a possible rematch with Hamilton, even before the state tournament began.

“We looked back and we just looked at where they hit, where they scored on us and we made sure in practice and leading up to the game that we were going to take all the balls that they hit, those shots that they scored last game, so that wouldn’t happen (tonight),” Quest said. “Then hitting wise, we looked at what was open and made sure when we played them, we were going to hit all those spots.”

By the third set, the Dashers could taste another state title game just ahead and raced toward it, with a wire-to-wire lead that featured a 13-point differential on three occasions. When Emily Zgonc missed a dig, giving the Dashers a 21-7 lead, she delivered a frustrated slap to the ground that was emblematic of the night. Quest and Maddie Brown teamed up for two blocks to close the final gap, then Brown delivered the final kill of the night.

“It was so much fun,” Brown said. “Madison’s really good obviously and it’s just so much fun to be playing together and it’s such a privilege.”

Added Quest, “It’s been so much fun seeing everything we can do together. She goes up, gets a great kill, then we go up and get a block together and we just feed off each other’s energy.”

Oconomowoc gets early wake-up call before clinching

The Dashers and Chargers were closing in on the end of their second set before the Raccoons finished their first against the Lightning. A set that went to 29-27 seemed to indicate it could be a long night for last season’s state runner-up.

“I think we were reading it well, but we were just, we weren't exactly like right there," senior Anna Bjork said. "And we needed to just trust in each other. Like for me like if I was reaching for a block, I needed to trust that my defense was there. Or our defense just has to trust that they're going to be there.

“That first set, I think there was just a little bit of hesitation. So then the next three sets, we trusted each other so well and that's why it turned around so fast. Because we were ready for that; we just had to trust that we were.”

In the second set, the Raccoons were able to pull away with ease at the midway point, winning 25-16. It was in part to the trust mentioned by Bjork. But there was another aspect as well.

“Another big difference was definitely our serving,” senior Olivia Kwiatkowski said. “In the first set they were in system a lot. And then the second set we really turned it up and kept them out of system and it kept them from setting their best hitter a lot of the time. So that was helpful.”

The final set saw Oconomowoc go up 24-18, before stalling at match point for several rallies. Appleton North was able to whittle the lead to 24-21, before a whizzing kill by Kwiatkowski put an emphatic statement on the match.

The inevitable rematch

When DSHA was hosting its post-match media session, the team did not yet know who its opponent would be for Saturday. Familiarity with both teams though made it an intriguing matchup regardless.

“We played them multiple times over the season, and I think just getting to know them and it's so fun, the fans go at it and it's just really fun to play either of those teams,” Brown said.

This matchup seemed inevitable though, as both a rematch, a showdown between the top two seeds in Division 1 and maybe even some revenge for Oconomowoc. The Raccoons can avenge not only last season’s state title loss, but their only three losses on the season, all of which came to DSHA.

“It was the two of us at the end of every big tournament so figured it would be that at the end,” Oconomowoc coach Michelle Bruss said. “We just kind of took it one game at a time to see who's in front of us. But all season has been that kind of shifts like ‘alright, this works for us. Could we shift it a little bit differently when we come up against DSHA at the end?’

“I think our eyes have always been on that and that this would be where we should be. Just gotta execute (Saturday).”

Pewaukee falls in Division 2 semifinal

After last night’s matchup on the boys side between No. 4 seed Kimberly and No. 5 seed Waukesha Fusion, it was going to be tough for anyone to top the instant-classic feel that match provided.

McFarland and Pewaukee did their best in the Division 2 semifinals with the Spartans narrowly moving on to face top-seeded and defending D2 state champion Xavier with a 18-25, 25-23, 25-23, 16-25, 18-16 victory over the Pirates.

The No. 2-seeded Pirates did all they could to play for the gold ball Saturday afternoon, erasing a 2-1 set deficit after controlling and taking the opening set on the back of Austin Peay recruit Dani Kopacz’s service line turn. Pewaukee reeled off a 7-0 run to go from a 15-9 hole to a 16-15 advantage It relinquished that lead only one time at 17-16 and then scored nine of the next 10 points for the early 1-0 lead.

McFarland got back in control with back-to-back set victories thanks to a pair of a four-point spurts in the middle of the second and third sets to give it the edge down the stretch.

Pewaukee bounced back with its season on the line in the fourth with a 9-0 run sparked by Kopacz and Kennedy Tisdale recording kills off a pair of Hannah Padilla assists, along with another in the run from hoops star Giselle Janowski in the momentum-stealing span to take a 19-7 lead.

In the final set, the Pirates got a break with an error from McFarland to make it a 12-8 Pirates lead, but the Spartans rallied with five of the next six points to level it at 13-13. A kill by Tisdale (14-13) and back-to-back kills from Kaylen DiBrito (16-15) had the Pirates on the cusp twice, but two McFarland kills and a Pewaukee error ended the comeback.

Leaders for the Pirates included DiBrito with 10 kills, Lucy May with 20 assists and both Kopacz and Megan Johnson with 19 digs each. The Pirates finished the season at 37-12.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: DSHA and Oconomowoc set for Division 1 state title rematch