Cedar Grove-Belgium vs Valders D3 sectional semifinal

November 1, 2024 Vaseline blog 0

Cedar Grove-Belgium vs Valders D3 sectional semifinal

VALDERS — It was an exciting WIAA Division 3 girls volleyball sectional semifinal on Thursday between the top-seeded Valders Vikings and No. 3 Cedar Grove-Belgium Rockets.

Cedar Grove-Belgium overcomes a sluggish start to prevail 3-1 and here are three things to know about the match.

Cedar Grove-Belgium dominated after dropping first set

Valders looked on pace to possibly sweep Cedar Grove-Belgium, taking the first set 25-10.

But after that, the Rockets won the next three games 25-20, 25-20 and 25-22.

“We came out on fire and were playing how we set out to do and then we slowly, I don’t know what we did, just stopped playing our game,” Valders coach Pam Erickson said. “We just couldn’t get over that hump.”

It was the opposite for Cedar Grove-Belgium according to coach Cailey Jeske-Winker.

“I think we talked about what we needed to as a gameplan against them and then it was just about executing that gameplan, staying aggressive,” Jeske-Winker said. “If we played scared we did not do well.”

Rockets senior Olivia Bahr says the players needed to refocus.

“We know our abilities and we know what we can do and we were better than that,” Bahr said.

Jeske-Winker agreed.

“It was a mindset thing,” Jeske-Winker said. “We know how we play and we didn’t play like that in the first game.”

Erickson says from Game 2 on it was Cedar Grove-Belgium setting the tone.

“We had a goal coming in that we were going to play a faster game because Cedar Grove-Belgium plays a little slower game and they got us to slow down,” Erickson said. “We could never find out groove after that.”

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Cedar Grove-Belgium has the opportunity to make history

No team has ever made the state tournament in Rockets program history.

In fact, just reaching the sectional endings is possibly a historic feat.

“It’s kind of history for us,” Jeske-Winker said. “We can’t remember the last time a team got this far so it’s new for us and we want to keep going.”

Cedar Grove-Belgium will face No. 1 seeded Bonduel at 7 pm on Saturday in Brillion for spot at the state tournament at the Resch Center in Green Bay next week.

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Valders completes unexpected season

Erickson talked after the game about how even though his players might have come out on the wrong end of Thursday’s contest, it was still a successful season.

The Vikings went undefeated in the Eastern Wisconsin Conference en route to the conference championship.

“I told the girls they can’t hang their heads this season,” Erickson said. “No one expected us to win conference. Nobody expected us to be a regional champion. None of that was on our radar but once the kids realized how good they could be they just kept pushing.”

Contact Tom Dombeck at 920-686-2965 or [email protected]. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @Tom_Dombeck.