Kill leaders Tallier, Weir hit first team; 2 more honored

ALL-EASTERN CLOVERBELT VOLLEYBALL

For the second straight fall, four Gilman Pirates earned awards in the voting for the All-Eastern Cloverbelt Conference teams. The difference this year is two of them sit at the top of the list.

Seniors Gracie Tallier and Tatum Weir are among this year’s seven-member All-ECC first team, which had four returning players from a year ago. Tallier is one of those. Weir bumps all the way up from last year’s honorable mention list.

Senior libero Ellie Drier returned to the All-ECC second team for the second straight year and emerging sophomore setter Abby Chaplinski got her first All-ECC volleyball award by getting onto the honorable mention list.

The awards follow a 4-3 season in conference play that put Gilman in a three-way tie for third place with Loyal and Colby. Gilman emerged as the thirdplace representative in the conference’s season-ending crossovers, where the Pirates lost a competitive three-set match to Western Cloverbelt representative Stanley-Boyd.

Gilman finished 14-13 overall under head coach Janice Komanec, falling 3-1 at second-seeded Clayton in a WIAA Division 4 regional semifinal on Oct. 20.

Conference champion Columbus Catholic led the way with three first-team picks –– the Dons’ trio of offensive attack threats Courtney Sommer, Aalyiah Krenn and Jenna Kibbel. Sommer was named the 2022 All-ECC Player of the Year. Kibbel and Sommer were firstteam choices last fall as well. Neillsville senior Delaney Rochester is back on the team for a second season. Colby’s Savana Thomsen is a newcomer to the squad.

Tallier’s repeat selection was no surprise. An honorable mention All-State choice as a junior, the athletic all-around performer on the court led Gilman with 239 kills in 875 total attacks for a solid .146 hitting percentage and .273 kill percentage. She served at a 93.1% success rate with just 20 errors in 291 jump serve attempts and had 54 aces. Defensively, Tallier was second on the team by averaging 12.4 digs per match and 4.4 per set with 334 digs in 76 sets played. She even added eight blocks during the year.

Tallier got 76 of those kills in conference matches, including 16 in a five-set loss to Colby on Sept. 13 and 16 in, arguably, Gilman’s best match of the year, a 3-2 loss to Columbus Catholic on Oct. 6. The Pirates were the only conference team to win a set, much less two, against the Dons this fall. Tallier also had 22 digs in that match. Tallier had 11 aces in the Pirates’ 3-0 sweep of Greenwood on Oct. 4 and 17 digs in a 3-0 win over Owen-Withee on Sept. 22.

Tallier had 15 kills in a 3-1 loss against a solid Abbotsford team on Sept. 8 and 13 kills in a 3-1 loss against then top-ranked Athens, who is playing at this weekend’s WIAA Division 4 state tournament in Green Bay.

Weir elevated her play in the front row, doing most of her damage in the middle. She recored 228 kills during the season on just 557 attacks for a .296 attack percentage that ranked among the state leaders in Division 4. She had just 63 errors and had a kill percentage of .409.

Weir also recorded 63 total blocks for averages of 2.3 per match and 0.8 per set, the latter of which ranked among the top 15 in the state in Division 4. She was credited with 23 solo blocks and 40 block assists.

In league play, Weir had 13 kills against Owen-Withee, 11 against Columbus Catholic and 10 in a 3-0 sweep at Loyal on Sept. 29. She had 17 kills in the loss to Abbotsford and 14 kills with three blocks against Athens. Weir had 12 kills, five digs and five blocks in a 3-0 loss to state-ranked Prentice on Sept. 15. Tallier had 11 kills and 15 digs in that match as well.

Weir served at a 93.4% success rate that led Gilman’s regulars. She had just 17 errors in 259 attempts and had 25 aces.

Drier was the experienced anchor in Gilman’s back row. She led the Pirates by averaging 13.4 digs per match while racking up 363 for the season. That came out to 4.8 per set. Drier and Tallier ranked second and third in the conference in that statistic. Drier had 25 assists during the year and served at a 92.8% success rate with 21 errors in 293 attempts. She had 15 aces.

Drier had 88 of her digs in conference play, including 29 in the 3-2 loss at Colby. She had 25 against Athens and 22 against Stanley-Boyd.

Chaplinski was handed the keys to Gilman’s offense last year as a freshman and she’s embraced that role having already surpassed the 1,000 assist milestone for her career.

This fall, she had 597 of the team’s 667 assists for an average of 7.9 per set. Those totals include 40 assists against Columbus Catholic, 29 in the short match with Loyal, 27 in the short match with Greenwood, 26 in the short match with Owen-Withee and 27 in the long match with Colby.

Chaplinski ranked third on the team with 9.3 digs per match and 3.3 per set. She had 251 for the year. She added 23 block assists, 30 kills and served at a 92.4% success rate with just 19 errors in 251 attempts. She had 29 aces to tie Kenlyn Kroeplin for second on the team.

After winning the Eastern Cloverbelt championship for the sixth straight year, top-seeded Columbus Catholic’s season reached an abrupt end in the regional final round of the WIAA Division 4 tournament with a 3-2 home loss to fifth-seeded Wisconsin Rapids Assumption. Columbus and Gilman were the only league teams to win a post-season match.

Tatum Weir First Team

Ellie Drier Second Team

Abby Chaplinski Hon. Mention