Waterville-Elysian-Morristown Making Most of Their Trip

The Waterville-Elysian-Morristown Buccaneers made their first appearance at the state volleyball tournament on Thursday and looked like seasoned veterans in a sweep over Ada-Borup.

The Cougars were last year's consolation champions and were experiencing their third consecutive trip.

You wouldn't know it by watching the two teams on the sport court at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

The Buccaneers used an impressive block and very efficient offense to sweep Ada-Borup in exactly one hour 25-14, 25-20, 25-9.

Their attack percentage for the match was a whopping .422, with only nine hitting errors.

Freshman setter Paige Pittman seems to get better every time I watch her play, and her spreading of the ball makes this Buccaneer team a force on the court.

Waterville-Elysian-Morristown had four players with double-digit kills and those four players had nearly the same number of attacks.

Senior Kamryn Kendall smacked a super-efficient .611 hitting percentage with 11 kills, junior Kate Masberg had 11 kills and hit .348, seniors Erika Olson and RaeAhna Harmon had 10 kills each and hit .471 and .421 respectively.

Pittman finished with 31 assists. Harmon had a double-double with 12 digs to go with her double-digit kills. Olson led the team with four block assists.

Buccaneer head coach Crystal Lamont might want to frame the final state sheet.

The attack percentages for the sets were through the roof good: .560 in the first set with just one error, .308 in the second set and .462 in the third set with just two errors.

No. 5-rated Waterville-Elysian-Morristown will have a chance to avenge one of their three losses during the regular season Friday when they play No. 2-rated and No. 2-seeded Tracy-Milroy-Balaton.

The Panthers did receive some first-place votes in various coaches polls throughout the season.

They took just 52 minutes to flick away the Sebeka Trojans by scores of 25-9, 25-18, 25-9.

Tracy-Milroy-Balaton is now 31-5 and had three players with double-digit digs, indicating they were picking up everything coming their way.

The Panthers just have nine players on their team and one senior.

They were led Thursday at the net by 5-foot-9 sophomore Sydney Lanoue with 15 kills and a .342 hitting percentage.

Five-foot-8 senior Sata Stoneberg had 11 kills and hit .474. She also tallied 16 digs.

Junior setter Gabbie Gervais had 35 assists and 11 digs.

Sophomore libero Kaylee Kirk had 22 digs.

The Panthers hit .281 as a team for the match.

The last time Waterville-Elysian-Morristown and Tracy-Milroy-Balaton met was in the championship match of an invitational September 25 where the Panthers won 25-20 and 25-22.

The Buccaneers are assured of three matches at state, but their goal since losing to Faribault Bethlehem Academy in Faribault in September has been to face them again.

That could happen in the third-place match, but the Bucs are hoping it's in the championship on Saturday.

Friday's showdown with the Panthers will be on KDHL Radio 920AM, online at www.kdhlradio.com and available by downloading the free RadioPup on your favorite mobile device.

Coverage will begin about a half-hour after the conclusion of the Bethlehem Academy match against Heritage Christian.

Saturday's match will be on Kat Kountry 104.9 FM due to commitments to St. Olaf and Carleton Colleges for their season finale football games.

The Bucs will either play at 11AM or 1PM.