Warrior Volleyball Falls To Panthers In SectionalSYRACUSE – Wawasee’s volleyball team knew it had a tough draw in the IHSAA Class 3A Sectional at the Hardwood Tepee Thursday, as NorthWood has been ranked among the top five teams in the state and hadn’t lost a match since the earliest days of the season.
So while there is the disappointment of having the season close with a 25-14, 25-5, 25-9 loss to the Panthers, Warrior head coach Jeff Phillips chose to focus on the positives of a season of improvement.
“We just ran into a team that was much better than us,” Phillips said. “We played them three times; the first time at Triton we had already had a good day and we were playing for the (tournament) championship. The second time we played them (Oct. 10) was Senior Night, and there’s always a lot of emotion with that.
“And then to play them again a week later, and they’re a team that hasn’t lost since August, we were going to have to have a lot of things go our way.”
Emma Dippon paced the Warriors with seven kills, and Liz Kleopfer had a dozen assists. Kai Jamora had five digs, and Aundreya Wegener added four more digs. Leslie Vazquez was credited with Wawasee’s lone block.
Having played the Panthers a week ago, Phillips said they wanted to add a few wrinkles to the game plan, but needed to stay within his team’s skill set to try and pull the upset. While things didn’t work out Thursday, or at other points in the season, Phillips is happy with the progress made.
“We made a couple of changes in the last week to see if we could spark something on our side, and maybe get our girls to be more confident,” he said. “There are always some things you’d like to improve. If you asked NorthWood, I’m sure they’d like to replay those three matches they lost in August. So we finished 15-17, and probably could have been 17-15. Could we have been better than that??It’s hard to say.
“For the most part, we’re up. I know the six seniors leave on a positive note, and there’s a ton of potential in our underclassmen. We took our lumps against some of the bigger teams this year in the hope that some of those underclassmen will be ready to make the jump (from junior varsity to varsity) next year.”
