By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
With each passing week, the pressure for the Big Foot volleyball team to make a repeat-trip to the state tournament mounted.
But as the regular season turned into the post-season, the Chiefs’ opponents also became a lot tougher to deal with.
And that’s the situation Big Foot faced last week – a tough and underrated Madison Edgewood squad that ended the Chiefs’ hopes for another journey north this weekend.
Big Foot (42-4) won the first game of the Division 2 sectional semifinal 25-23, but fell in the next three, 25-17, 25-23, 25-20, to see its 2012 season come to a sudden end.
Edgewood showed the win over the Chiefs wasn’t a fluke, as it swept River Valley in three sets two nights later to advance to the state tournament.
“We needed (to play) a great match to win,” Big Foot coach Jen Stelling said. “We didn’t have our best match, and they were definitely underrated. They’re a good team.”
Stelling said her team struggled to deal with Edgewood’s size across the front line.
“They’re tall,” he said. “They were able to hit over our block and played great defense. We didn’t terminate balls. We played to be safe and to not lose. That’s not going to win games. They were better on that night.”
Individual leaders for the Chiefs included Sydney Racky with 19 kills and 14 digs; Amy Schryver with 14 kills, three aces and 25 digs; Mackenzie Long with two aces and 38 digs; Maggie Kivlin with two aces and 21 digs; and Katarina Rotta with two blocks and 38 assists.
The loss was a bitter pill to swallow, but Stelling said her team can be proud of another stellar season with 40-plus victories.
“The pressure was so high on the girls,” she said. “All the talk of going back to state. They had so much pressure to do well… If we had a great match like we did against East Troy and Lakeside, it would have been different. But we didn’t have our best match.”
Results of All-Rock Valley Conference voting and a statistical wrap up of the season will run in a future edition.
