Pirates miss chances at Prentice, win twice at Thorp triangular

GILMAN VOLLEYBALL

Any one of the top three teams at Saturday’s five-team Prentice Volleyball Invitational were good enough to win it, but three close games did not go Gilman’s way which dropped the Pirates to third place in the final standings.

Gilman opened the tournament by falling 30-28 in a marathon first game with Mercer. In their next match with Prentice, the Pirates had late leads in both games but couldn’t hold on in either one.

Prentice then went on to clinch the tournament championship by beating Mercer in a competitive three-set match 25-18, 22-25, 15-9.

Gilman finished the day 2-2, easily taking care of its last two opponents Flambeau and Butternut.

“We started off the day with a strong Mercer team,” Gilman head coach Janice Komanec said. “Set one went back and forth the entire time. We had opportunities to take the win and had multiple game point situations but just couldn’t finish. Same goes for set one with Prentice.”

Mercer, a WIAA Division 4 sectional finalist last fall, carried the momentum from its game-one win to dominate game two against Gilman 25-14.

Then against Prentice, the Pirates turned a 13-10 deficit into a 20-15 lead in game one, getting three block kills from Tatum Weir, two aces from Kenlyn Kroeplin and two kills from Bryn Hendricks in the 10-2 run. An exchange of points kept Gilman up by five, but Prentice inched back into it with four straight points. After Gracie Tallier got a touch for the Pirates, Prentice’s Ayriel Foster got a kill and an ace to tie it at 22-22. Gilman nudged ahead 25-24 for game point, but a hitting error and kills by Kali Heikkinen and Mallory Burcaw won it for the home team 27-25.

The Pirates actually led longer in game two. They never trailed while building leads of 11-7 following a Claire Drier kill and Abby Chaplinski ace and 16-12 following a Kroeplin ace. The Buccaneers didn’t catch them until 22-22 and that was during a 5-0 run that turned a 22-20 Gilman lead into a 25-22 Prentice win.

“We’ve gone back and watched video,” Komanec said. “We’ve seen things we can adjust and change. We also had some errors in vital situations, and we need to go back and build our confidence and consistency. We had two strong wins over Flambeau and Butternut to end the day.”

The Pirates had no trouble with Flambeau, jumping ahead 12-1 in cruising to a 25-7 game-one win. Game two was close early, tied 7-7, but kills by Weir and Tallier and a Danielle Mann ace sparked a run that opened things up in Gilman’s 25-11 win.

The Pirates finished the day by controlling Butternut, who finished 0-4 on the day, by scores of 25-15, 25-17.

Tallier was Gilman’s kill leader for the day with 30. Weir had 22, Claire Drier had 21 and Tshiya Keepers chipped in with seven. Chaplinski set up the hitters with 70 assists. Kroeplin led the servers with four aces. Tallier had three, while Ellie Drier, Chaplinski and Weir had two each.

Claire Drier and Weir had six block kills, while Keepers had five. Ellie Drier led the squad in digs with 35. Tallier had 25, Chaplinski had 16, Kroeplin had 14 and Kayleigh James had 13. Saturday’s results put Gilman at 4-2 overall after its first two tournaments of the season. The Pirates get into best-offive play tonight, Thursday, by hosting Athens in non-conference play in the 7:15 p.m. home opener for 2022. They’ll get a second test against a good Marawood North team on Sept. 8 when they visit Abbotsford for a 7 p.m. match.

2-0 at Thorp

On Thursday, Gilman came up big in clutch moments in both games to sweep Thorp and clinch first place in the season- opening Thorp Triangular. The Pirates solidly controlled their match with Owen-Withee in the tournament’s middle round, winning 25-17, 25-15 to set up the deciding third match with Thorp, who swept the Blackhawks in the first round 25-19, 25-12.

Against Thorp, Gilman built a 17-9 game-one lead, only to see it turn into a 23-22 deficit. At 24-23, Gilman fought off game point with a dump from Chaplinski and then got to game point at 25-24. Thorp tied it, then served long, allowing Gilman to win it 27-25 on a Tatum Weir kill.

Game two was tight most of the way. Gilman went on a little run with Chaplinski serving to go up 16-12. The run started with a nice dig by James and save by Claire Drier that led to a mishit by Thorp. Keepers had a key block kill as well.

But Thorp came right back to take what appeared to be a 19-18 lead on a Kasey Moskiewicz tip kill, but the head official overruled the play, calling a net violation to give Gilman the one-point lead. Keepers got another big block, Tallier served up an ace and the Pirates dug a ball out of the net to get a Keepers tip to go up 22-18.

It was 24-19 when Thorp scored three straight points to pull within 24-22 but Gilman ended it on a big kill from the left side by Weir off a Chaplinski assist.

The Pirates shook off some early jitters against Owen-Withee that had them down 12-9 in game one. Tallier ripped off four straight aces as part of a run that put them up 16-12. Kroeplin had an ace and kills from Claire Drier, Hendricks and Weir closed out the opener. The Pirates gave up the first point in game two then never trailed the rest of the way, going up 15-5 at one point and Weir had a big finish with three late kills and a block.

Weir was Gilman’s kill leader for the night with 14, while Tallier had seven and Claire Drier, Chaplinski and Keepers had four each. Tallier finished with 11 aces while Kroeplin had two. Chaplinski had 26 set assists.

Ellie Drier dug up 37 balls from the libero position. Tallier had 13 digs, Chaplinski had 12 and Kroeplin added nine. Keepers had a team-high six blocks, Drier had four and Weir was credited with two.

Kenlyn Kroeplin led Gilman with four service aces Saturday in Prentice.