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Golden Hawks Bow Out By
Ryan Suchomel
WASHINGTON -- Mid-Prairie put together a magical postseason run, but Mediapolis knocked off the pixie dust Tuesday, 25-22, 25-16, 25-21, in a Class 2A regional final. "It's a pretty sad locker room," Mid-Prairie coach Jenny Slagel said. "We made it this far, it would've been nice to go to state." The Golden Hawks (19-15) were denied a return trip to Cedar Rapids after starting the postseason with a 16-14 record and a serious handicap. Right before postseason play, Mid-Prairie lost four players, all starters, for disciplinary reasons. The Golden Hawks won a district title and a regional semifinal with a new mix of players. "The younger kids just stepped up," junior Katie Herington said. "It was hard for us, but it brought us together as a team more." "Basically we had to pull in a whole new lineup," Slagel said. "And that's tough. You only get so much time to work. If it would've happened a little bit earlier in the season, it would've been a little different." Early on in the match, it looked like the Golden Hawks had the right stuff, and they built a 13-8 lead, forcing Mediapolis to call a time out. "We were just uptight," Mediapolis coach Dennis Jandrey said. "We needed to come back down to earth a little bit and run some offense." The Bulldogs got two hustle points from middle hitter Beth Weber, a kill from Monica Holsteen and an ace serve from Marissa Dideriksen as they evened Game 1 up, 17-17. The Golden Hawks couldn't recover as the Bulldog offense finally started clicking. "We were more anxious than nervous at first," Weber said. "We knew how good we could do. We just had to get back in our system and play the best we can." Game 2 was tied 9-9 before the Bulldogs went on a 13-3 run fueled by four Mid-Prairie hitting errors. "They are a very good defensive team," Slagel said. "We had a lot of balls we thought were going to go our way, and didn't." Down 2-0 in games, the Golden Hawks tried to block out the thunderous Mediapolis crowd in the tightly packed Washington High School gym. "When you've got a crowd like Mediapolis that fills half the gym, and they are going wild, it's hard for our girls to concentrate," Slagel said. "I felt like we were pretty comparable, but we didn't get in a rhythm tonight." The Golden Hawks proved a tough out, and after a stuff block by freshman Cari Brenneman, tied Game 3 up 18-18. But Weber, who was dominant in the middle for Mediapolis, came up with three big kills down the stretch in the final game, and Holsteen punctuated the win with a match-ending kill. "Their middle killed us," Herington said. "We didn't get a double block on her soon enough and she had an amazing night. "We knew they had a strong middle, but we didn't expect the outsides along with it, and it kind of threw us off a little." Weber led Mediapolis with 15 kills and three stuff blocks. Holsteen added nine kills and Katie Hollingsworth had six. Molly Pedersen ran the offense with 34 assists. Mediapolis, which tied a school record for victories, moves to 35-9 and on to the state tournament. The Bulldogs will face top-ranked Aplington-Parkersburg (37-2) Nov. 10 at the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids. "Hats off to Mid-Prairie for what they went through, to play like they did," Jandrey said. Herington had nine kills and seven stuff blocks for Mid-Prairie. Stacy Beeler added five kills and Hannah Boehmer had 18 assists. Kelsey Thomann led the Golden Hawks with 20 digs. The silver lining for Mid-Prairie is that a lot of players return with postseason experience next year. Only one senior -- Thomann -- started for the Golden Hawks Tuesday. "We went through this my freshman year, too," Herington said. "And we did better (the state tournament) the next year, too." |