NEW GLARUS — In recent years, New Glarus and Waterloo have been battling for the Capitol South Conference title. Just because the two teams are down this year doesn’t mean the battle has ceased, though. The Knights earned the season sweep of the Pirates on Oct. 8 in another five-set thriller — 25-12, 14-25, 27-25, 15-25, 15-12.
“Everyone says it’s hard to beat a team twice. It was the same type of game both times, where we went to five,” senior Audry Brueggemann said. “I think we really worked on pushing through those sets that we got down and came back and won.”
Initially, it appeared as though the match would be done in quick order. After knotting the first set at 3-3 with an ace from Waterloo’s Mya Novak, New Glarus went on an 8-1 run. The rally began with a free ball kill from Brueggemann, as her serve receive went over the net and fell for a point. The Knights doubled up the Pirates 8-4, as Addison Disch kept a rally alive that ended in an attack error for Waterloo.
A 7-1 run later in the frame put New Glarus up by 10 points, 18-8. Sophomores Kate Parman and Kalia Malaise chipped in with a block and kill, respectively. Kennedi Esser capped the run with a kill out of a Waterloo timeout.
The last offensive point that the Pirates scored came on a kill from Kylie Webster to make it 18-10. Their final two points came on Knight errors, but NG closed out the set on a 5-point run to win by 13.
“I didn’t expect (a five-set match),” New Glarus head coach Kayla Zimmerman said. “After the first set I thought we had an easier road tonight. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and we got stuck in some serve receive rotations with errors — lots of unforced errors.”
The rut began immediately in the second game, as Waterloo jumped out to a five-point lead with Mya Novak serving. The Pirates bailed the Knights out of that rotation with an attack error, and NG was able to respond with an eight-point run. Ellie Brenkman gave New Glarus its first lead of the set with a block on an overpass, and Parman won a battle at the net. During the run, Ella Woodmansee had three aces, including one that the Pirates watched hit the back line.
“She’s our go-to server right now,” Zimmerman said of Woodmansee. “I know it’s not where she’d like to be. She’d like to be playing front row also, but right now we can’t live without her in the back row. She passes the ball well, is lights-out on serve receive and doesn’t miss serves.”
But it didn’t take Waterloo long to find another strong rotation, this time with Alix McCarthy at the line. Her first serve landed between two Knights who just looked at the ball, then each other. NG got a hand on McCarthy’s second serve, but it was a last-second decision, resulting in another ace.
With confidence low and her team trailing 15-11, Zimmerman called a timeout. Addison Kammerud’s kill off a Pirate block got the Knights out of that rotation, but it was the last offensive points for NG. Their final two came on attack and ball handling errors, as Waterloo evened the score 1-1.
The decisive third set began heavily contested. The two teams evened the score four times with three different lead changes. Esser’s tip kill gave NG an 11-10 advantage that held for five more points before Waterloo called a timeout. Out of the break, Hailey Bronkhorst recorded a tip kill that sparked a 9-1 Pirate run.
Waterloo was able to even the set for a fourth time at 16-16 with a block from Makenna Hauptli and Nikomi Sullivan. The 5’10” middle was a block — literally — to the Knight offense, as Sullivan tallied two more block kills.
“She’s a tall kid. We were giving her too much time to get set up,” Zimmerman said. “I think it’s hard to read then if you are swinging right into her or how to make an adjustment. She did her job, and we just didn’t do ours.”
But, Zimmerman’s timeout switched momentum to favor New Glarus. Back-to-back tips from Brueggemann and Malaise got the Knights back within two, 20-18. They were able to knot the score at 24 with a kill from Esser. Although Waterloo reached 25 first, Brueggemann came up clutch with a tip kill and full-swing attack to secure the victory.
“A lot of times on defense, I’m watching the other hitters doing the same thing over and over again. I know that, if I mix it up, they aren’t going to expect that,” Brueggeman said.
But just like the transition from the first set to the second set, the Knights lost momentum and dropped the fourth set by 10 points, setting up a winner-take-all fifth.
“We always focus on the fifth set that it is three games to five. We want to win each of those,” Zimmerman said of her team’s strategy. And the Knights did just that to earn the victory.
Parman’s tip got NG to five first, Brueggeman’s tip gave the Knights their 10th point, and a Pirate attack error was the game-deciding point.
With the win, New Glarus improves to 3-5 in the Capitol South. The Knights have just two conference matches left, including the Hwy 69 rivalry against Belleville on Oct. 17.
