WATERTOWN – Senior night is always a special moment for high school athletes. In their final home game of the regular season, the Watertown-Mayer volleyball team sent their seniors (Ellie Ernhart, Monika Czinano, and Madison Haag) off in style with an impressive 3-0 (25-23, 25-19, 25-23) sweep against the Annandale Cardinals Tuesday night.
“It was awesome,” freshman outside hitter Paige Thibault said. “We love beating Annandale. It’s hard for our seniors, though. We’re going to miss them so much and they’ve been such a big part of our team. It will be hard with them gone, but it was good to have a win with them at home.”
The Royals (19-6, 6-0) knew exactly what was at stake coming into this matchup. With the Royals and Cardinals each coming in with a perfect 5-0 record in the Wright County Conference West, the winner of the showdown gained control for the conference title with just one game left on the schedule.
“We knew this was a big game,” Ernhart said. “It would lead us to our conference championship, so that was our goal for tonight.”
It was a battle throughout in set one as the Cardinals and Royals went back-and-forth matching each other. With the set tied at 20, Janessa Berrios and the Royals took over down the stretch to snag set one, and take a 1-0 lead. Berrios had a kill to give the Royals a 23-22 lead, and finished things off for her team with back-to-back aces to seal the win.
“When we’re in our system and we’re all working together, I think it’s really hard to defend our team,” Thibault said. “When we all connect, we all work together like a system.”
The Royals kept the pedal down in set two, racing out to a 12-2 lead early. The Cardinals fought back though, closing the gap to just three points. With the Cardinals trying to rally back, the Royals composed themselves, and got back their style of play, a style that helped them jump ahead in the early going.
“They weren’t frazzled,” Watertown-Mayer coach Andrea Raser said. “They would get down, and then they would just fight through and played to their level. It was just fun to watch them finally just do it and know they could do it.”
When the Cardinals got to within striking distance, it was Thibault who seemed to come through in the clutch for the Royals when they needed it most.
“Whenever I get the set, I just like to make a smart decision with it,” Thibault said. “I just want to put in a spot that I know that I can get us some points when we need them. I just want to be smart about it.”
Thibault, who finished with 10 kills in the win, continued to make plays for the Royals into the third set. With the Cardinals playing back to their level of play in the third set, it was the balance of the Royals’ offense that helped them prevail in the end, and pick up the sweep.
“You can’t pound it every time,” Raser said. “We always talk about smart and aggressive plays while not being soft. A good tip isn’t going soft. It’s just a smart aggressive play. When we can go pin-to-pin, run our middles, and work the back row attack, nobody knows what is going to happen. It’s fun to watch them play. When we are on with our passing, everything falls into place.”
With the win, the Royals are in the drivers seat for the conference title. They’ll close out their regular season Tuesday, Oct. 17 at Glencoe-Silver Lake with a chance to clinch the conference title outright with a win.
“We got four days to practice and we’ll be prepared and ready to plan,” Raser said. “These girls will just go out and play their game.”
WATERTOWN-MAYER 3, ANNANDALE 0
W-M STATS
KILLS: Nikki McDonald 3, Janessa Berrios 12, Vanessa Schroeder 5, Kylie Hoese 9, Paige Thibault 10, Monika Czinano 5. DIGS: McDonald 6, Berrios 14, Hoese 8, Thibault 12, Ellie Ernhart 11. ASSISTS: McDonald 29, Berrios 1, Thibault 3, Ernhart 2.
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