Abby sweeps Eagles in first round victory

Last year, the Falcons’ volleyball season ended in Auburndale, Abbotsford falling to the Eagles 3-1 in the second round of the playoffs. While the visiting sixth-seeded Falcons were able to make a late comeback in the contest, Auburndale’s offense was too much to overcome, ending Abbotsford’s season one game short of the regional final.

Almost one year following that defeat, Abbotsford was able to return the favor, ousting the Eagles from the playoffs on Tuesday evening. Once again a sixseed, the Falcons were paired with the 11-seeded Auburndale in the first round and they took care of business on their home court, setting down the Eagles in straight sets.

While the Falcons got off to a bit of a slow start, they made sure that there was little doubt over the eventual outcome of the match. Making use of some solid serving and pressuring with their quick sets, Abbotsford was able to keep the visitors on the back foot for much of the evening.

“We came out a bit slow, but I think that’s normal for a senior heavy group that might be playing its last match, especially if it might be their last home match,” head coach John Kreeger said. “Lots of thoughts and emotions can creep in, but I thought we did a really nice job overcoming that quickly and really taking control of the match.”

Auburndale took an early lead in the first set as both teams settled into the match, going up 8-5 over the course of the opening rallies. However, Abbotsford’s serving began to come into play and the early consistency from the Eagles began to fall apart. Calley Ruesch tied the game at 8-8 with a trio of impressive deliveries from the service line and Caylee Clement’s ace gave Abbotsford the lead at 11-10.

The Falcons did not look back, as Sommer Brodhagen and Sydney Falteisek continued the home team’s serving dominance, earning a few aces of their own as they outscored Auburndale 14-3 the rest of the way to take game one 2513.

The second set between the two squads was much closer, with neither squad able to gain much of an advantage over the early portions of the game. While Abbotsford held the lead for much of the set, they were not able to break away until late in the set. Two consecutive points on Auburndale breakdowns finally gave Abbotsford a bit of breathing room, allowing them to go up 17-12. They carried that lead to the end, a block from Oriah Harris and Faith Sperl giving Abbotsford the 25-18 victory.

Set number three appeared primed for a blowout as Abbotsford opened up a 17-4 lead over the Eagles in what would be the final set. Auburndale managed to bounce back, outscoring the Falcons 14-8 over the final stretch of the match and cutting the lead down to six at one point, but the Falcons had done enough over the first 20 rallies to pull out the win. The game ended in another 25-18 victory from Abbotsford, McKinley Klabon putting away the Eagles with a final kill up the middle for the home team.

“Overall, our team played some of its best volleyball of the season,” Kreeger continued. “We had twice as many aces to service errors, out hitting percentage was a season high as a team for a single match, and we were getting a kill on almost 40 percent of our attacks. The most impressive thing to me though, was our defense. We held Auburndale to 19 kills over the three sets and we kept their hitting percentage .200 points below ours.”

The victory over the Eagles sets up a road meeting with the third-seeded Westby squad on Thursday, Oct. 19. The Norsemen held a 23-11 record in the regular season and took second place in the Coulee conference. The match will