Crusaders breeze through SEISC pool play

NEW LONDON — It’s that time of the season when Holy Trinity’s volleyball team starts checking the boxes on the list of goals for this season.
The first big one comes Saturday in the Southeast Iowa Super Conference Tournament finals, and the Crusaders took the first step toward that one with Thursday’s sweep through pool play at New London High School.
The Crusaders defeated New London 21-2, 21-6 in their first match, then downed Danville 21-7, 21-8 before ending the night with a 21-16, 21-10 over Winfield-Mount Union.
Now they are one of the final eight that will be chasing the title in Saturday’s final rounds at Southeastern Community College in West Burlington.
“Saturday night is really big,” said sophomore Olivia Bendlage. “We want to win the conference — it’s the first step of what we want to accomplish this year.”
The Crusaders (24-2), ranked second in Class 1A, are in the middle of a big eight-day stretch that included winning five of their six matches in the Lisbon Tournament last Saturday, winning their own HTC Classic on Monday, and now going after another conference tournament title.
To do that, though, they had to get through Thursday, which included two teams — Danville and New London — that they’ve already seen this year.
There was no looking ahead, coach Melissa Freesmeier said.
“We had fun tonight, in between our matches,” she said. “But we wanted to stay focused and be ready for Saturday, and that meant going through some of the other teams in the conference and we did that tonight. I thought we did that well.”
“I think it was pretty cool — I think it was good how we stayed connected all through the night,” junior Elizabeth Griffin said. “We stayed locked in and we were ready for anything.”
Bendlage said staying focused is important for the Crusaders to reach their ultimate goal of winning the state tournament.
“I think we’ve really been harping on playing the way we know we can, and not play down to other teams’ levels,” Bendlage said. “We need to stay focused, play the way we can play. We know it’s tough once you get to the state tournament, and we have to be playing our best and hopefully succeed there.”
The first match against New London took less than 20 minutes, and the Crusaders really weren’t challenged much against Danville. The first set against Winfield-Mount Union, though, was a bit of a struggle at times.
“I thought we did some really good things,” Freesmeier said. “But there were too many errors in that last match. But we stayed aggressive — we were really good at the net, we served very aggressively. I think we’re getting better every night.”
“It was good to get a little bit of a challenge, and I thought we handled it well,” Griffin said.
The next challenge comes on Saturday.
“There’s going to be eight teams there and any of the eight can win it,” Freesmeier said. “We’ve got a day to practice, and we’ll be ready for it.”
HOLY TRINITY STATISTICS
Kills — Adalyn Kruse 21, Presley Myers 14, Olivia Bendlage 10, Emma Mohrfeld 5, Makayla Simpson 4.
Assists — Calli Kruse 25, Elizabeth Griffin 25.
Serving — C.Kruse 34-36 (4 aces), Bendlage 24-25 (8), Alivia Holmes 20-22 (2), A.Kruse 17-17 (5), Myers 17-20 (9), Griffin 12-14 (2).
Digs — Bendlage 17, Griffin 9, Holmes 9, Myers 8, C.Kruse 7, A.Kruse 2.
Blocks — Myers 2, Simpson 2, A.Kruse 1.