Young GFW squad falls to Renville County

By BOB VARMETTE

Journal Sports Writer

REDWOOD FALLS -- Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you just get beat by a better team.

Class 2A No. 4 Renville County West doesn't always get the attention it deserves. The Jaguars just happen to be in the same subsection, and the same conference, as the top-ranked Tracy-Milroy-Balaton Panthers.

But the Jaguars are still a very good team. With their height, their hitting and their defense, they were just too much for Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop.

The third-seeded Thunderbirds put up a fight in the final two games, but eventually succumbed to No. 2 seed RCW 15-7, 15-5, 11-15, 15-10 Tuesday night at Redwood Valley High School in the Section 3-2A, North Subsection volleyball semifinals. TMB and RCW will meet at 6 p.m. Friday at Southwest State University in Marshall for the subsection title.

"I'm really happy the way my kids played," GFW coach Bob Kaukola said. "Renville County is a quality team to lose to. We had a good year."

It has been a good year for the Thunderbirds (18-6-2). Losing setter Megan Beltz and middle hitter Rebecca Kaukola among others, the Thunderbirds returned only one starter from last season -- senior Melissa O'Malley. And only two other seniors are on the GFW roster; there are seven sophomores.

The inexperience helped send GFW to a deficit it couldn't recoup.

"The first two games, I didn't think we played too well," Bob Kaukola said. "I think maybe we were too anxious to play. We made a lot of dumb mistakes, we did a lot of things wrong.

"We only have one senior who played a lot last year, and that was Melissa O'Malley. ... It showed, we were a little tight I'd say."

RCW (22-7), getting 11 kills from 6-foot-2 junior hitter Aimee Freiborg, dominated the first two games. Freiborg finished with a match-high 18 kills.

And while the defense for the Thunderbirds was spotty, the GFW transition game was nearly nonexistent -- passing was merely a passing thought.

"We started out really slow," said GFW junior setter Krystie Kaukola, who finished with 38 set assists. "We were too energized, but we weren't ready to play. It's hard to explain it. We were full of energy, but we didn't know where to put it."

O'Malley led the Thunderbirds with 11 kills and two blocks. She said it wasn't intimidation; it was the Jaguars' early leads.

"We've played them before," O'Malley said. "We knew what they were capable of. Their getting started quickly really shut us down. It was hard to get up after that. They were just too far ahead."

Despite the lackluster performance in the first and second games, the Thunderbirds still had life. GFW's offense started to get in synch and the defense started plugging holes.

After leading 2-0 early in the third game, the Thunderbirds fell behind, but never lost contact with the Jaguars. RCW's biggest lead was only four points and GFW slowly chipped away at it.

Trailing 10-7 after two straight RCW points, senior Andrea Busch, who recorded seven kills, got the Thunderbirds a side out when she slammed a kill through the block of Kellsey Andries.

A Jaguar passing error got the Thunderbirds within two at 10-8. Senior middle hitter Anna Maurer got a soft kill to fall cut the deficit to one.

Sophomore Cassie Schmidt tied the game at 10 with an ace serve to the backline. Freiborg followed by sailing a kill attempt long and GFW led 11-10.

The Jaguars evened the match at 11 with a Laura Eekhoff kill, but could find no more. GFW forced a fourth game by running off four straight points on the serve of Maurer after trading three sides out with RCW. Sophomore Alisha Kruggel had two kills in the string and the Thunderbirds sent the match to a fourth game when the Jaguars couldn't handle a Maurer serve.

"We started passing, that picked us up," Krystie Kaukola said. "When we had the pass, everything else was fine."

But things didn't remain fine for long for the Thunderbirds. RCW shot out to a 7-0 lead in the fourth game, getting three kills from Freiborg. It was too much of a lead to erase.

GFW whittled the margin to four points twice -- at 7-3 and 14-10 -- but the Jaguars dominance at the net had returned. Freiborg, who in the first three games had generally been substituted for when she rotated to the back row, got three ace serves in the final six points for the Jaguars, including the match-winner.

"In game four, we let them get out too far," Bob Kaukola said. "Down 7-0 is really too far. ... (But) we played pretty well in games three and four."

Junior middle blocker Teri Knapper and Eekhoff, both 5-foot-11, recorded double-digit kills for the Jaguars. Knapper finished with 11 and Eekhoff had 10.

"'Mr. K' told us what to expect," O'Malley said. "We knew what shots to expect and which players to expect them from. We were pretty ready. We just couldn't find a spark today."