Newton volleyball downs L-S, falls in semifinals at North Mahaska

NEW SHARON — A second win this season over Lynnville-Sully got the Newton volleyball team off to a strong start at the North Mahaska tournament on Saturday.

But the Cardinals couldn’t hold an early advantage against the host Warhawks and the momentum from that loss carried over to the semifinals where Newton was eliminated by conference rival Pella Christian.

“We have to get over that next hurdle of finishing those tight games,” Newton head volleyball coach Heidi Woollums said. “We were in position to win (against North Mahaska) and it felt as though we played not to lose instead of playing to win.”

Class 2A No. 11 Pella Christian went on to win the tournament. The Eagles downed Newton 25-11, 25-15 in the semifinals and then handed North Mahaska its first loss of the season 25-14, 25-11.

There was some confusion during the day about how the tournament was set up and executed.

Coach Woollums and PCM head volleyball coach Sarah De Vries both expressed confusion and frustration about the decisions and changes that were made on Saturday.

Teams received emails prior to the tournament stating that the semifinals would be seeded on a point system after pool play.

Newton’s pool included North Mahaska and Lynnville-Sully, while PCM was matched up with Pella Christian and HLV.

Pella Christian won both of its matches in straight sets and would have been the No. 1 seed in the format that was emailed out before Saturday.

The host school though later changed the format. Pool champions faced the runner-up teams in the other pool in the first round of the semifinals. And the third-place teams met for one final match on the consolation side of the bracket.

The original set up would have had Newton facing North Mahaska in the semifinals but the Cardinals faced Pella Christian instead.

North Mahaska (12-1) defeated HLV in their semifinal matchup to set up a championship match with the Eagles.

The Warhawks defeated Lynnville-Sully 21-13, 21-6 in their pool-play matchup.

PCM suffered a 21-17, 21-14 loss to the Eagles (12-5) and were defeated 21-19, 22-20 by HLV in pool play.

The Mustangs recovered in their consolation match against Lynnville-Sully. PCM (8-5) swept the Hawks 25-18, 25-20 to get some redemption from a loss earlier this season. Official statistics were not available at press time.

“We came out strong, and I thought we played well against Pella Christian,” De Vries said. “We were able to keep our hits away from their block and played scrappy. Our match against HLV was filled with our own errors. They are a good team, but we had them beat at the net just not with our serve receive and digging.

“We finished the day strong and stayed in front of L-S, which felt good after losing to them earlier in the season. We played more consistently and attacked the net well.”

In the Cardinals’ win over Lynnville-Sully (7-8), Delaney Woollums finished with eight kills, Chloe Swank tallied 11 digs and Isabelle Rawlins added 18 assists and five digs to lead the way.

Macy Lampe registered five kills and three digs, Lola Rivera and Emersyn Gross both put down three kills and Addie Ratcliff posted two kills.

The Cardinals (6-8) were 41-of-41 in serves with four aces. Addison Hook was 14-of-14, Rawlins served 7-of-7 and Sloan Brodersen was 6-of-6.

Newton had a kill efficiency of .340. Lampe’s kill efficiency was .440 and Woollums had a .412.

“We started off strong against Lynnville-Sully,” Coach Woollums said. “Everyone contributed and we were able to get our energy level up.”

Woollums finished with 11 kills and four digs to lead the Cardinals in the loss to North Mahaska. Lampe added eight kills, five digs and four aces, Rawlins chipped in 23 assists, two kills and three digs and Swank produced 10 digs.

Ratcliff put down two kills and Brodersen and Lainey Vander Schel each tallied two digs.

“We played strong throughout the first set against North Mahaska,” Coach Woollums said. “We served aggressively and were able to take them out of their offense. Our serve receive broke down for a portion of the second set, but we fought back and tied it up.”

Newton was 48-of-52 in serves with eight aces. Hook and Brodersen both were 9-of-9 and Rawlins served 6-of-6.

The Cardinals had a kill efficiency of .283, while North Mahaska’s was .306. Woollums posted a .450 kill efficiency and Lampe’s was .318. Both teams had 25 kills.

North Mahaska was led by Sydney Andersen’s eight kills and nine digs. Regan Grewe added seven kills and seven digs and the Warhawks were 46-of-51 in serves.

Pella Christian had a 7-4 advantage in aces against Newton and the Eagles served nearly twice as many times as the Cardinals.

Swank led Newton with 14 digs and is now only one dig away from tying the school record for career digs. She currently has 845 career digs.

“We put a lot of energy and emotion in North Mahaska and came out flat against Pella Christian,” Coach Woollums said.

Pella Christian was led by Chloe Huisman’s 18 assists an five kills and Faith Kacmarynski added 12 digs and three aces.