Dolphins advance to State

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CHAMBERLAIN – The Dolphins are heading to the state volleyball tournament.

No. 11 seed Deubrook Area swept No. 6 Kadoka Area by the set scores of 25-16, 25-21 and 26-24 in the Class B Sweet 16 on Tuesday at the Chamberlain Armory.

It marks the Burgundy and Gold’s second trip to state all-time, the other coming in 1998 – a year in which they won it all.

“It just doesn’t even seem real,” said Dolphin senior Cortney Bauman. “I don’t know if it will hit me until we’re standing on that court at state. But just the crowd and the atmosphere here, it made it seem a little bit more real.”

It certainly is real, and Deubrook overcame some late adversity to seal its spot in the field of eight.

The Dolphins led 20-17 in the third set before giving up a few points on errors and then back-to-back kills to Alyssa Civitak as the Kougars moved ahead 22-20.

But Deubrook showed resiliency down the stretch.

Bauman sandwiched kills around Shelby Andrews’ smash on an overpass to retake the lead at 23-22.

Kills by Civitak and Jade Hutchinson gave Kadoka set point, but a service error knotted things up at 24-all.

Another unintentional overpass resulted in a kill for Deubrook’s Ashley Vandermeer, and then, Shaylee DeBeer ended it with a kill of her own soon thereafter, setting off a Dolphin celebration.

“Stay the course girls, just stay the course,” Deubrook coach Rachelle DeBeer said when asked what was going through her mind following the opponent’s late 5-0 run. “I was out of timeouts; we’ve been in that situation, I bet, eight times this season and I think we’ve won all but one of them – we came back and were able to close out.

“We’ve been put in that situation before. Our kids are gutsy and we just took swings; you have to swing. We made some huge plays defensively, and I thought we served very, very well – very aggressively – which we needed to do. I’m just so proud of our kids, so proud; huge night for us.”

Early errors by the Kougars helped the Dolphins build a 12-4 cushion in the opening set; however, Kadoka eventually rallied to pull within 14-13.

The score stood at 19-16, before Deubrook rattled off six consecutive points – DeBeer had two kills, Bauman added a kill and Sarah Urevig netted a service ace during the run – to take the set.

Set 2 was a tight affair, until the Dolphins pulled away from a three-point advantage by scoring eight of the final 11 points.

Andrews’ kill made it 18-15, and she and Vandermeer then teamed for a block before DeBeer followed with an ace.

Later, the Dolphins took advantage of a pair of Kougar errors, when a kill by Bauman and an ace from Vandermeer gave Deubrook set point.

DeBeer’s kill on the left side polished it off.

The third set saw Kadoka rally to grab an 11-8 advantage. Deubrook countered with four straight points and neither team led by more than three points after that.

“I thought there was a lot of action back-and-forth,” DeBeer said of the match, which lasted 64 minutes. “I thought our kids did a great job. We knew they had a lot of girls that swing really, really hard; and, so, we really worked on our defense and worked on attacking them. The times that we didn’t attack, they went on little runs. And when we started attacking them, we were able to get momentum and score points when we needed to.

“I’m just super proud of these kids, so proud of these kids.”

Vandermeer finished with 11 kills and nine digs.

DeBeer totaled 10 kills and seven digs as she (13) and Urevig (16) combined for 29 set assists. Urebig added four kills, two aces on 12-of-12 serving and nine digs.

Bauman contributed seven kills and 10 digs. Andrews posted five kills and three (one solo) of the team’s five blocks. Courtni Frank posted two aces – the squad has six – on 10-of-10 serving and came up with six digs.

“We came in and we had watched a lot of film on them so we knew it was going to be a tough battle, but we scouted the best we could so we came in pretty confident,” Bauman added.

Kadoka Area finished the season with a 26-4 record.

Deubrook Area earned the No. 7 seed in the Class B State Volleyball Tournament, which begins Thursday, Nov. 16, at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center in Rapid City. The Dolphins (25-7) take on second-seeded Chester Area (25-4) in the first round at 8:45 p.m. CT.

Note: This is the first year of the Sweet 16 format in Class B. … The Flyers topped the Dolphins 28-30, 25-21, 25-18, 25-23 in a regular-season matchup Sept. 25 in Chester.

CLASS B SWEET 16 VOLLEYBALL

Tuesday’s scores

No 1 Northwestern def. No. 16 Alcester-Hudson 25-11, 25-10, 25-11

No. 2 Chester Area def. No. 15 Timber Lake 25-10, 25-13, 25-16

No. 3 Warner def. No. 14 Bridgewater-Emery 25-13, 25-14, 25-6

No. 13 Faith def. No. 4 Philip 25-23, 19-25, 8-25, 25-21, 15-10

No. 5 Hanson def. No. 12 Faulkton Area 25-22, 20-25, 25-20, 25-25

No. 11 Deubrook Area def. No. 6 Kadoka Area 25-16, 25-21, 26-24

No. 7 Herreid/Selby Area def. No. 10 Kimball/White Lake 25-19, 25-17, 25-23

No. 8 Burke/South Central def. No. 9 Arlington 21-25, 23-25, 25-18, 25-12, 15-11

CLASS B STATE VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT

At Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, Rapid City

Thursday, Nov. 16

First Round

No. 1 Northwestern (32-1) vs. No. 8 Faith (21-11), 1 p.m.

No. 4 Hanson (27-2) vs. No. 5 Herreid/Selby Area (29-2), 2:45 p.m.

No. 3 Warner (28-4) vs. No. 6 Burke/South Central (28-5), 7 p.m.

No. 2 Chester Area (25-4) vs. No. 7 Deubrook Area (25-7), 8:45 p.m.

Friday, Nov. 17

Consolation semifinals

Northwestern/Faith loser vs. Hanson/HSS loser, 1 p.m.

Warner/BSC loser vs. CA/DA loser, 2:45 p.m.

Semifinals

Northwestern/Faith winner vs. Hanson/HSS winner, 7 p.m.

Warner/BSC winner vs. CA/DA winner, 8:45 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 18

Seventh place – 10 a.m.

Fifth place –11:45 a.m.

Third place – 1:30 p.m.

Championship – 5 p.m.