For the second straight season, the Aplington-Parkersburg volleyball team will compete in the Class 2A State Tournament. The #5 (2A) Falcons defeated #12 (2A) Sumner-Fredericksburg 3-0 in Wednesday’s Region 5 final at Waverly-Shell Rock, as aired on 104.9 KLMJ. The Falcons won 25-15, 25-19, 25-20.
In the first set, the Falcons pulled away for their most lopsided win after starting point-for-point through the first 20. They gave up an early 10-5 lead in set 2, but bounced back from a 15-14 deficit for a 2-0 lead. The Cougars led by as many as five in set 3, but the Falcons closed it out with a Peyton Klooster solo block.
Klooster block highlight:
Senior defensive specialist Emma Wolff says the team battled hard for every point.
“Last year just really prepared us,” Wolff says. “We know it doesn’t matter your record coming into playoffs. Everyone’s 0-0, so it doesn’t matter if they’re a 12-seed. They’re still gonna bust butt and still give us a good fight. I think we scouted them really well. We knew we had to kind of shut down Volker, and she gave us a lot of good balls. We know she’s gonna give us her kills. But I think we played really well defensively. We honed in on what needed to be done, and then our blockers put up a great block and great touches so that we were able to get some good passes on Bella’s head.”
Coach Candace Kleespies says the team’s mission to this point was to get back, but now that they’ve qualified, the job is not done.
“We’re just really proud of this group of girls,” Kleespies says. “They had a mission at the start of the year that this is what they were going to do. And not just get down there, but we really want to make a push this year. And so just really proud of them, just fighting as hard as they could and getting done what they really wanted to.”
Zoey Uhlenhopp led with 11 kills and Jenzen Klooster had nine.
The Falcons (36-6) are the #5-seed in the state tournament, and will take on #4-seed Dike-New Hartford in a quarterfinal on Tuesday, November 5 at 4:00 p.m.
Adria Neymeyer:
Bella Buseman:
Peyton Klooster:
Emma Wolff:
Candace Kleespies:
