Pirates stop Tigers 2021 season in Region 2B

Ipswich closed out its girls' high school volleyball season at 14-14 with a highly contested Region 2B loss to Highmore-Harrold in Highmore last Tuesday. This match would indeed go the distance with the hosts winning 3-2. That's right, the Pirates would win the tie-breaker 15-8 to claim their victory.

They had gotten off to an impressive start, winning the opener 25-8. But Ipswich regrouped with a 27-25 second-set victory to even things at 1-1. And Ipswich also won the third set 25-10 to put itself into the drivers' seat. But the hosts responded with a 25-19 win to even the match at 2-2, forcing that tie-breaker which they would win. In Ipswich's initial game's win the set point proved to be a hitting error on the Pirates after a Vanesa Diaz serve, and the Tigers' last set point would be an ace serve by Quincy Olivier, according to Tiger coach Trent Osborne.

In a match that long, there are some impressive statistics and this was certainly the case on Tuesday. Ipswich finished 113-142 in hitting and included 29 kills. The Tigers were led by Gracie Lange at 32-45 with 12 kills and Olivier 22-25 with five kills. The Pirates responded with a 81-106 hitting effort which featured 36 kills. Ipswich's net attack was enabled by a nearly perfect 130-131 setting evening with 23 assists. (Olivier was 49-49 with 11 assists and Katie Bierman finished 51-51 with eight assists.) The hosts would distribute 96 sets with 30 assists.

They would initiate their offense with a 89-97 serving effort and landed 10 aces. Meanwhile Ipswich was led at the serving line by Bierman's 16 of 20, four-aces evening. Lange was next at 11-12 with three aces. Altogether the Tigers were 77-86 at their line and included no fewer than 11 aces.

Defensively Ipswich was led in digs by Madison Geditz with 23 and Baylee Kulesa with 18. In the blocking department Ipswich featured Kaylin Onken with a solo block and also one assisted block. Diaz and Kulesa each added two assisted blocks.

The Tigers should also be competitive next season, only losing Tasia Rivera to graduation.

Faulkton and Miller were the two 2021 Region 2B bracket champions. They played in the SoDak 16 games on Nov. 9. Faulkton played Timber Lake in Ipswich and Miller played Colman-Egan in Madison.