Eagles extend season one more game

By JEREMY BEHNKE

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- The New Ulm Eagles added one more game to their schedule and defeated Glencoe-Silver Lake 25-22, 25-8, 25-14 in the first round of the Section 2AAA playoffs Monday.

The Eagles now advance to face the No. 1 seeded Marshall Tigers in a 7 p.m. game Thursday. New Ulm was eliminated by the Tigers last year, but New Ulm head coach Becky Otte knows that the Eagles can compete with the top ranked team in the state.

"Thursday will be a good opportunity for us to see where we measure up against the best team in the state," Otte said. "Last year we did go in and play tough against them, because we were in the same situation last year."

Otte is familiar with the style of offense the Tigers run, so she knows if the Eagles play well defensively, anything can happen.

"We know that they're going to run a big, fast type offense," Otte said. "If we play defense like we did tonight, we'll hang with them. We just need to get our offense going, because this team [Marshall] is a much better better passing team than the one we played tonight."

In order to take the bus ride to Marshall, the Eagles had to defeat GSL in the play-in game. New Ulm started out slowly in the first game like it typically does, but put away the Panthers quickly in the second and third games for the sweep.

"I think maybe it's because it's a Monday game and we've been a slow-starting team," Otte said. "Basically, once we got rolling, we were able to start to pass a little better."

Ashley Hoffmann's ace serve gave the Eagles a 20-15 lead, but the Panthers clawed back to trim the deficit to 22-21. The Eagles won the game on an off-speed tip by Krysta Wieland. in the second game, the Eagles broke a 4-4 tie and went on a run to break the game open. Tiffany Hoffmann's kill and a Mary Otis tip put the Eagles up 24-8 and the Eagles won on the next serve.

In the third game, Otis had consecutive ace serves, giving her team a 10-2 lead. The Eagles finished with 16 aces in the match.

"The ace serves were real tough, and we were really able to keep them out of the game," New Ulm coach Becky Otte said.

Ashley Hoffmann had 14 set assists and Tiffany Hoffmann had six kills and four block kills. Brittany Bauer and Otis each had four kills. Otis had five service aces and Abby Bernard had four.

Brittany Sturm had 17 digs and Amanda Waibel had 14. Bernard had 10 digs.

New Ulm (8-11) continues Section 2AAA play at 7 p.m. in Marshall.

Jeremy Behnke can be reached at jbehnke@nujournal.com