SIOUX FALLS Sioux Valley finished in sixth place in the Class A State Volleyball Tournament over the weekend as the Cossacks beat Winner in the consolation semifinals before falling to Miller in the consolation championship.
The No. 7 seeded Cossacks lost in four sets to No. 2 seeded Hamlin on Thursday night and that sent them to the consolation bracket. They would beat the No. 6 seeded Warriors in five sets on Friday and were then swept by the top-seeded Rustlers on Saturday.
Sioux Valley head coach Jill Vincent said she thought her team competed the entire tournament and was proud of them.
I thought we competed in every match we played, Vincent said. The Hamlin match was tight the whole way and could have gone either way. The second day we just battled with Winner. It was close and it was a fun one and you could kind of call it an instant classic. Miller is just traditionally good. We played them in the SoDak 16 in 2019 and that was when they had a pretty dominant team too and almost won it.
But going against the one-seed you knew they were going to be good and theyre not used to losing and have a lot of success, but I think we played with them. The scores dont really show how close we were to them, but theyre so well coached and they knew exactly what they were doing. They executed their game plan and we tried to execute our game plan but it did not go as planned.
Sioux Valley finished the season with a record of 25-8. It was the first time the Cossacks made the State Tournament since 2017 and they had to pull off two upsets to get there as they beat Great Plains Lutheran in the Region 2A Playoffs and then topped Hill City in the SoDak 16. Vincent said shes going to remember how her team changed their mindset at the end of the season and that led to them finishing the season with three matches in Sioux Falls.
Im going to remember how we really changed our season towards the end and really changed it for the better and changed our mindset. Our season went from good to really great and we just had a lot of good feelings at the end. We had something special going on and it was a fun year to make a trip to the State Tournament, Vincent said.
Friday
No. 7 Sioux Valley 3, No. 6 Winner 2
Winner won the first set 25-22. The Cossacks would then bounce back with a 25-14 win in set two to tie things up. Vincent said she thought her team hit the ball a lot better in the second set.
We just kept pushing ahead. We got behind early in that first set and couldnt come back from that deficit, but we just kept working and decided that the second set would be better. I think we kind of dominated the second one. They only had four kills and a few errors, but we hit really well in the second set, Vincent said.
Sioux Valley would then win the third set 25-19 but dropped the fourth set 25-13. That would set up a winner take all fifth set and the Cossacks would come out on top, winning 16-14. Vincent said her teams defense at the net played a big factor in getting the five-set victory.
In the fifth we just kept scrambling and had a lot of digs in the last set. We got a lot of blocks [as well] and they came at the right time and it would stay on their side. Keyra [Kruse] and Emma [Gorvin] were big in that one with their blocks, Vincent said.
The Cossacks had 54 kills and 102 digs as a team. Kaedyn Sapp led the way with 18 kills and 16 digs. Adison Renkly had 12 kills and Caitlin Russell had 25 digs. Sunny Hesby had 24 assists and 30 digs. Machaela Gerasch had 20 assists and Emma Gorvin had eight kills. Keyra Kruse and Lacey Langland each had seven kills. Elise Lemme had seven digs and Talya Vincent had six digs.
Saturday
No. 1 Winner 3, No. 7 Sioux Valley 0
The Cossacks ran into the top-seeded Rustlers in the consolation championship as Miller was swept by No. 8 seeded Sioux Falls Christian in the quarterfinals on Thursday.
The Rustlers won the first set 25-16 and then the second set was a marathon. The two teams went back and forth in the second set and Miller came out on top with a 33-31 victory. The Rustlers then won the match by winning the final set 25-12.
Vincent said she thought her team just couldnt get any momentum going after that long second set.
I think in the third set we just couldnt get anything going our way. We didnt have much luck. Our passes werent as tight on the net as we needed them to be and then we couldnt get our sets on the net. Then when we did, they had a pretty good block up or we hit it out of bounds. All of those things were snowballing for us. But that second set was just a marathon and that was pretty fun, Vincent said.
The Cossacks were led by Sapp and Renkly who each had eight kills. Sapp also had 23 digs. Machaela Gerasch had nine assists and nine digs and Hesby had 12 assists and seven digs. Russell had seven digs as well.
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