A state semifinal between the No. 1 and No. 3 ranked teams in the state should never be a rout.
But that’s exactly what the Catholic Central girls’ volleyball team turned Friday morning into at the Resch Center, beating Hillsboro 25-10, 25-11, 25-11.
Hillsboro never led in the match, as Catholic Central got out to early leads and played with confidence the entire match.
The Lady Toppers also took Hillsboro standout Charis Luedtke completely out of the match. The junior exchange student from Germany finished with nine kills, but also had 10 errors.
“We had to take her out of her game,” said CCHS coach MaeMae Oberhofer of Luedtke. “We didn’t let Germany beat us.”
CCHS junior Maggie Smith had 11 kills, while Amanda Koenen had seven. The official stats had Koenen with just one solo block and Kelly Gould and Smith with just two block assists, but the Lady Toppers were all over the block during the match, keeping Hillsboro from gaining any momentum.
“They were awesome today. They got on us and never let up,” said Hillsboro coach Mark Sullivan. “That’s the way it works.”
Please see the blog below for today’s updates.
Good morning, folks. This is Jennifer Eisenbart online here at the Resch Center in Green Bay for the WIAA Division 4 semifinals this morning. Beautiful bright sunshine outside, if a bit chilly, but we’re in for some fireworks on the courts this morning.
Catholic Central faces off with Hillsboro, while on the other court, Owen-Withee plays Wausau Newman. CCHS enters the state tournament ranked No. 1 in Division 4 in the wissports.net rankings, while Hillsboro is No. 3 and Owen-Withee is No. 5.
As per WIAA regulations, we cannot do live play-by-play action this morning, but we’ll be coming to you with frequent updates and commentary. Please hit refresh often, and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.
9:54 a.m. – Warm-ups went well for both CCHS and Hillsboro, with No. 26 for Hillsboro showing a wide variety of skills. That’s Charis Luedtke, who is the team’s kill leader with 439 on the season. CCHS will counter with Maggie Smith and Megan Wadsworth on offense, plus those two, Amanda Koenen and Kelly Gould blocking.
10:00 a.m. – We’re working through introductions right now. We’ll be back with updates at timeouts and at the end of games.
10:10 a.m. – Less than 10 minutes into the match, and CCHS is ahead 12-3. The Lady Toppers started on a 5-0 run, and Hillsboro looks completely out of sorts right now. CCHS is also blocking well, and responding well to the blocks Hillsboro is getting up.
10:20 a.m. – The first set took less than 20 minutes, as CCHS kept Hillsboro out of system – and Hillsboro is erroring, a LOT. Game score 25-10, with Charis Luedtke hitting out of bounds on game point. Hillsboro never took a second time out, but they are spending a good amount of time in the huddle now trying to regroup.
10:32 p.m. – It’s beginning to look like CCHS may get out of here in under an hour. More of the same in set two, but less errors by Hillsboro and more CCHS playing with total confidence. Two straight errors make it 19-6 CC, and finally Hillsboro calls timeout.
10:38 a.m. – Set two goes to the Lady Toppers, 25-11 — and the only reason Hillsboro got more than 10 points was a pair of late service errors by CCHS. This is a clean rout right now, as Hillsboro’s Charis Luedtke can’t get open very often with the defense CCHS is playing.
10:54 a.m. – CC leads 24-11 and has match point. Back in a few.
11:04 a.m. – Still waiting for the official match time, but it was less than an hour.
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