Edmunds County Tribune -

Ipswich swept its two Region 2B high school volleyball appearances last week in the Tiger Den and didn't have a whole lot of time to celebrate. That's because the team advanced to a Tuesday, Nov. 12 SoDak 16 play-off game vs. Burke in Chamberlain with the winner advancing to the State B in Rapid City on November 21-23. (Burke is the number-seven seed and Ipswich tenth seeded of the 16 statewide survivers.)

Burke entered the SoDak 16 tourney with just over 30 wins and five losses and Ipswich, having fewer regular-season appearances, improved its own season record to 20-6 after the 3-0 win over North Central last Tuesday and the Region 2B bracket championship straight-sets victory over Sully Buttes two nights later. (Faulkton became the other Region 2B advancer into the SoDak 16 with its 2B bracket championship straight-sets sweep of Potter County that same evening and the Trojans were to play Castlewood on Tuesday with their berth in the State B at stake.)

"What a feeling it was watching those girls celebrate as a team in the middle of OUR floor and in front of OUR fans after accomplishing one more of the many goals that we had set for ourselves," said an elated head coach Trent Osborne after the historic regional win. "Each girl did a little something during that match to put us over the top. This will be something that they will always get to say that they were part of the team that was 'the first (Ipswich) SoDak 16 team'. But we can't just be happy to be at this point. We need to have a predatory mindset and plan to check off one more goal on our list."

Osborne says "At times we are unconventional and unorthodox and we keep everyone on the edge of their seats, but we are a team from top to bottom. Teams that play for each other are hard to beat."

That's exactly what the Lady Tigers did in the regionals, especially on championship night. They played as a team and that team included Hailey Bierman rejoining the team from her recent medical absence. So they were able to sustain some momentum swings and runs by their opponents that they hadn't been able to do as easily in previous seasons.

"We have matured over the season," Osborne explained. And that maturity has paid off and hopefully would help prolong the season. But Osborne cautioned "When you get to this time of the year everyone is good, including us. Everyone deserves to be here and anyone can win on any given night."

Osborne said that his Lady Tigers would prepare for the SoDak 16 and try to be the best version of the 2019 Tigers that they could possibly be, not resting on their laurels. He said they would go into Tuesday's clash "with everything that we have got."

Getting back to the regionals, Ipswich edged North Central 25-18, 25-17 and 26-24 to start its post-season campaign.

This one had some of those momentum swings that tournament volleyball fans love to see. A NC violation ended the first set and a Paige Mehlberg kill capped the second set. But the visitors weren't ready to concede anything at that point in time. They jumped out to a 9-1 lead in the third, before Ipswich slowly started battling back into contention. But the Lady Tigers still trailed late in the match 24-20, before Ipswich rallied for six straight points, ending that decisive run with an Olivier ace.

Ipswich actually sustained an overall 89-78 hitting deficit, but countered with a 27-17 kills lead. Avery Sylte was 34-39 with eight kills, Halie Feldman 10-15 including seven kills and Mehlberg 9-11,4, as was Lindsey Grabowska. In setting, Ipswich finished 96-96 with 26 assists, led by Halle Heinz, 54-54 with 16 assists. At the service line, Ipswich featured 14 aces, including five from Olivier among her 17 total serves. Grabowska was next at 10-12 with four aces. And Tarynn Kleffman was 18-20 with three aces. Altogether the Lady Tigers landed 75 of 84 service attempts, while the NC Thunder went 88-93 at the line with a lone ace.

Defensively Ipswich had 102 digs, led by Olivier and Sylte with 22 apiece. Ipswich added two solo blocks and seven assists, led by Feldman with one solo and three assists. (Katie Bierman added three assists.)

Meanwhile, Ipswich's championship match set wins over Sully Buttes were 25-20, 25-23 and 25-21, respectively. And you can probably guess that there were some crucial momentum swings in all three sets. Mehlberg capped the first set with a solo block, Sylte ended the second set with a thunderous kill and a Sully Buttes service error ended a late come-from-behind bid by the Chargers.

Ipswich finished 85-107 at the net with 28 kills; SB 70-87 with 18 kills. The Lady Tigers were paced by Sylte 37-41 with nine of those kills and Feldman added six kills. Ipswich distributed 97 sets with 26 assists, led by Heinz with 15 assists and Bailey Pitz with nine assists. At the service line, the Lady Tigers were 70-75 with 11 aces, led by Pitz 15-16 with four aces and Grabowska 16-17 with one ace. Olivier added three aces. (The visitors finished 62-69 there with four aces.)

Ipswich collected 87 digs, paced by Sylte with 22 and Grabowska with 19 followed by Heinz with 18. Ipswich also utilized four solo blocks and six assisted blocks, led by Feldman and Mehlberg with two solos and one assist apiece.