CLARA CITY - Central Minnesota Christian played strong regular-season matches against Tracy-Milroy-Balaton and the results were two convincing victories.
But that meant little on Monday when the Bluejays and Panthers squared off with the Camden Conference championship on the line at MACCRAY High School.
The Bluejays committed all manner of unforced errors - 40 in all - and while they rallied from two games down to force a fifth set, the amped-up Panthers took home the title 25-19, 25-9, 23-25, 16-25, 15-5.
“We couldn’t get anything going early,” said Bluejays head coach Terrin DeBoer. “It’s tough to win a match when you make that many errors. That’s almost two games worth of points.”
The Bluejays finished the regular season 25-6 and are the No. 1 seed in Section 3A-North. They are off until opening the postseason Oct. 24.
ADVERTISEMENT
CMCS defeated the Panthers 3-1 during a Sept. 30 regular-season match and the Bluejays also won 2-0 at the Class A Showcase in Burnsville on Sept. 20.
But CMCS had trouble getting into any kind of flow from the start of Monday’s match, while the Panthers were playing efficiently.
After a Game 2 thumping, the Bluejays got it together.
“It’s just unfortunate,” DeBoer said. “(TMB) is a good team and all credit to them, but when we played out game in sets three and four, we didn’t have any problem. But I’m proud of how our players came back from 0-2 against a good team.”
Erin Orred led the Bluejays with 18 kills and Lexi Scott had 17. Nicole Brouwer had 47 set assists, Christine Mikelson had 26 digs and Kalley Schwitters had 24.
TMB 3, CMCS 2
TMB (21-9) 25 25 23 16 15
CMCS (25-6) 15 9 25 25 5
ADVERTISEMENT
(Key: good-attempts-aces)
Tracy-Milroy-Balaton
Serving (aces): Sara Stoneberg 3, Kassidy Przymus 2, Sydney Lanoue 2 … Set assists: Gabbie Gervais 36 … Hitting (kills): Lanoue 11, Stoneberg 9, Pryzmus 8 … Blocks: Sammi Gervais 7.5, Pryzmus 2.5 … Digs (5 or more): Stoneberg 15, Anna Peterson 15, G. Gervais 10
Central Minnesota Christian School
Serving: Christine Mikelson 19-19-2, Kalley Schwitters 10-10-1, Nicole Brouwer 12-13-0, Hannah Nelson 12-13-0, Natalie Brouwer 12-14-1, Lexi Scott 7-9-1 … Set assists: Nicole Brouwer 132-139-47 … Hitting: Schwitters 17-20-7, Nelson 16-16-5, Natalie Brouwer 8-9-2, Scott 42-53-17, Erin Orred 24-27-18 … Blocking (aces): Nelson 1, Scott 1 … Digs (5 or more): Mikelson 26, Schwitters 24, Nelson 14, Scott 21
