No. 3 Crusaders roll in SEISC pool play

WAYLAND — The most competitive match Holy Trinity had in the Southeast Iowa Super Conference pool play on Thursday night might have been when the Crusaders battled among themselves.
There was going to be a long delay between HTC’s first match against WACO and the second match against Pekin, so coach Melissa Freesmeier had the Crusaders play a game of “Two-Ball” and got everyone out on the court.
“It's one of their favorite warm-up games in practice,” Freesmeier said. “So it's basically, you know, anything goes — they want two balls on one side of the net and not on the other, and they're very competitive in it. So they have fun. I thought, let's get some energy and let's try it out.”
The rest of the night was continued domination by the third-ranked (Class 1A) Crusaders (16-3), who extended their winning streak to 11 matches and advanced to Saturday’s final rounds of the tournament at Southeastern Community College’s Loren Walker Arena.
Holy Trinity hasn’t dropped a set in this current win streak, keeping that going by defeating WACO 21-12, 21-10, then beating Pekin 21-8, 21-13 and Louisa-Muscatine 21-9, 21-7.
The Crusaders have switched from a 6-2 to a 5-1 offense without junior Calli Kruse, who is out with a knee injury, and they’ve adjusted well.
“It’s working for us,” Freesmeier said. “Calli is wanting to come back, and she’s working hard to get back there. I think with this group of kids, we can throw a lot of people in. These kids know the game of volleyball, and they're going to take what they're given, and they're going to go with it.”
The Crusaders had 60 kills in the three matches, with a .918 hitting percentage. Adalyn Kruse had 19, Olivia Bendlage had 15 and Kate Pieper had 14.
“I just think we're hitting the ball well,” Freesmeier said. “We had errors tonight. But again, they’re aggressive errors, and when they're aggressive errors, that’s OK.”
If the Crusaders make it to the championship match on Saturday, they will have had an 11-match week.
“I’m really happy with our week,” Freesmeier said. “We’re ready to go into Saturday night with some confidence and just continue to attack teams.”
HTC will take on Columbs in the first round of action Saturday at Southeastern Community College starting at 5 p.m. Mediapolis will play Danville in the other half of that bracket with the winner facing the HTC/Columbus winner.
In the bottom bracket, Pekin takes on West Burlington and Wapello will play Notre Dame with the two winners facing the semis.
The winners of the semis face in the championship and there is a 3rd place match  as well.
HOLY TRINITY STATISTICS
Kills — Adalyn Kruse 19, Olivia Bendlage 15, Kate Pieper 14, Kymber Jones 7, Makayla Simpson 5.
Digs — Elizabeth Griffin 14, Kruse 13, Brynn Denning 11, Brooklyn Scheetz 8, Bendlage 7, Pieper 5, Layne Schmitt 3, Simpson 2, Jones 2
Serving — Bendlage 29-30 (5 aces), Denning 19-22 (8), Pieper 18-18 (1), Griffin 16-19 (1), Schmitt 15-17 (4), Jones 7-8, Kruse 5-9 (2), Faith Ward 2-2
Assists — Griffin 56
Blocks — Kruse 4, Pieper 4, Jones 3, Griffin 2, Simpson 1.