Team’s best effort of the season results in three-set sweep of Eagles
By Brian Sumpter
Lake County Sports on Facebook
KELSEYVILLE >> In a complete reversal of the match they played Sept. 26 in Cloverdale, the Kelseyville Knights dominated the Eagles 25-16, 25-16, 25-11 in a showdown of North Central League I varsity volleyball co-leaders, the victory earning Kelseyville no worse than a share of the league title Tuesday night in Kelseyville.
The league race now comes down to a final Thursday round of matches. If Kelseyville (11-2) wins at home against Fort Bragg (7-6), who the Knights lost to in five sets Sept 28 in Fort Bragg, it will clinch the undisputed title. If Fort Bragg beats Kelseyville again and if Cloverdale (10-3) prevails at home against Lower Lake (0-13), which is almost a certainty, the Knights and Eagles will end up as co-champions.
That small detail – beating Fort Bragg to close out the league schedule – was the first thing Kelseyville head coach Donelle McCallister mentioned after the Knights’ total domination of the Eagles.
“Fort Bragg is no joke,” McCallister said. “They’re a tough team and I hope we can play as well against them as we did tonight. This isn’t going to be easy.”
Unlike a Sept. 26 three-set loss to the Eagles, who climbed on the back of sophomore middle hitter Ronni Hatcher for a win over the then-undefeated Knights, Kelseyville completely flipped the script in this one.
“We could not defense No. 11 (Hatcher) the first time we played,” McCallister said. “Tonight we did a much better job blocking her.”
And that wasn’t the only difference between Sept. 26 and Tuesday night. This time around it was the Knights who were constantly on the attack, spreading around kills to several players, all of whom had their moment in the spotlight.
Olivia Hommer, a senior outside hitter, dominated early and finished with a team-best seven kills. The ever-consistent Nyejzniya Krohn, a senior, and freshman Jordyn Wurm each added six kills, while Krohn also had four aces, and Bella Patti, the star of the second set, finished with five kills.
No less important were the contributions of Briana Davis with five kills (hitting at a .454 clip) and four huge blocks, most of them against Cloverdale’s Hatcher, while Matisyn Mateer contributed a couple of well-timed kills and blocks.
Kelseyville’s passing and setting made the dispersal of kills a real problem for the Cloverdale defense, which didn’t know where the attack was coming from much of the night.
“We had to have good setting tonight, and we got it,” McCallister said.
Ashlyn Klein finished with 14 assists and freshman Riley Hanson added eight more. Cali Schnabl, the team’s senior libero, dug out several hard hits by the Eagles while registering 14 digs on defense. She also had three aces.
“They played well together,” McCallister said. “I’ve seen this team play like that at times this season, you know it’s there, but tonight we played like that all three sets.”
McCallister said it was Kelseyville’s best effort in league play this season. The Knights won their first five league matches before losing back-to-back road trips to Cloverdale and Fort Bragg. Since that 5-2 start they’ve won six matches in a row and dropped only set in the process.
What turned it around midseason?
McCallister said the team’s participation in the Rancho Cotate Tournament earlier this month in Rohnert Park was that turning point. The Knights went 2-3 against some top-notch competition and learned what it takes to play a higher sustained level of volleyball, according to McCallister.
“Playing against all of that good competition really helped up,” McCallister said.
“That’s the team we knew we could be,” McCallister said of Kelseyville’s ultra-strong effort against the Eagles, who managed to stay close to the Knights midway through each of the first two sets before the Knights pulled away to win both by comfortable margins.
In the first set, Davis’ block of Hatcher won a point for Kelseyville to make it 16-11. A short time later back-to-back Hommer kills made it 18-13. A Hommer ace, a Krohn kill and a Hanson ace pushed that lead to 23-16. Cloverdale hit the ball into the net to give Kelseyville the 24th and 25th points of the set.
The two teams were tied 13-13 in the second set when the Knights went on a mini 4-0 run that featured a Patti kill and back-to-back Patti aces. Two more Hommer kills and a Wurm kill pushed Kelseyville’s lead to 22-14. The Knights picked up two of their final three points of the set on unforced Eagles errors.
So great was the Knights’ momentum heading into third set – they jumped out to a 9-2 lead that included Patti and Krohn kills – that not even a stink bomb going off in the Kelseyville student section could slow them down. While the smell cleared out the student section in a hurry and eventually made its way to the playing floor, the match continued uninterrupted though it had Kelseyville officials scrambling a bit to sort things out and clean things up.
A pair of Krohn kills, an ace off the net by Hanson, a huge Mateer block, another Patti kill, and then a Mateer kill, had the Knights up 22-6 at one point. After a Davis dink put the Knights within one point of the match victory and league title at 24-11, Cloverdale ripped a shot out of bounds to end it.
