John Bohnenkamp for Pen City Current Sports
BURLINGTON — The final point of the biggest match of Holy Trinity’s volleyball season fell softly to the Johannsen Gym court, and a season’s worth of frustration — heck, two seasons worth — was buried in the Crusaders’ celebratory pile.
“This team,” coach Melissa Freesmeier said, “deserves this.”
Holy Trinity’s 23-25, 25-23, 25-17, 25-21 victory over two-time defending state champion Notre Dame in Wednesday’s Class 1A regional final was the Crusaders roaring through their biggest roadblock, an SEI Superconference South Division rival that had defeated them seven consecutive times and eliminated them from the postseason the past two seasons.
“To beat this team, I’m speechless,” said junior outside hitter Mary Kate Bendlage.
“It means that we had the heart to do it,” said senior middle hitter Kayla Box. “We knew we could do it.”
“Honestly, right now, there’s no words for this win,” senior outside hitter Brooke Mueller said. “We wanted it, and we knew we could do it.
“And we did it.”
The Crusaders (29-15) are going back to the state tournament. They are the sixth seed in the 1A bracket, and will face third seed Gladbrook-Reinbeck (32-9) in Tuesday’s 8 p.m quarterfinal at Xtream Arena in Coralville.
This victory in the crucible of October was built with the struggles of August and early September. It started when junior Natalie Randolph, expected to be one of the key pieces of a 6-2 offense that Freesmeier wanted to run, went out with a season-ending knee injury before the season began.
The adjustments that the Crusaders had to make without one of their top players led to some early-season stumbles. They were 7-7 after a five-set home loss to West Burlington on September 15, an unusual record for a program that has traditionally been one of the state’s best.
Holy Trinity has gone 22-8 since then.
“I know we had a lot of doubters out there,” Freesmeier said. “But we never gave up on these kids. The season started with a lot of adversity. Every game, it seemed like something would happen. And we worked through it.”
Which was why the Crusaders weren’t staggered after the first-set loss of this match.
“Tonight, when things got tough, we played harder,” Freesmeier said. “Just gutted it out. Gutted it out. I think they left some blood out on the court.”
“We just had the strength to pull through,” Box said. “There was nothing (the coaches) could really tell us. They knew we knew what to do.”
“That first set gave us a lot of momentum, actually,” said freshman middle hitter Presley Myers. “We really took that into the second and third set.”
The Crusaders were built for this.
“It’s one set,” Mueller said. “There’s possibly five. We knew we had a lot of errors in that first set, and the next three sets we just took over and cleaned everything up.”
A Box block and a Myers kill ended the second set. Holy Trinity led the entire third set, closing with the last four points — Bendlage had a kill and Myers had a block and a kill to set up game point.
The Nikes led 21-20 in the fourth set, then Myers took over. She had three kills in a four-point run to get the Crusaders to match point. When the mishit by Notre Dame’s Taryn Stephens bounced off the net and to the court, the Crusaders finally had plucked a thorn that had stung them for two years, the one that cut them in the regional semifinals in 2020 and in the state tournament semifinals last season.
“This whole season, this has been our goal,” Bendlage said. “We wanted to play them in the postseason. They’re a great team and they played hard all night. But we played just as hard and came out on top.”
She thought back to the final point.
“Oh my gosh. I couldn’t think straight,” Bendlage said. “It was an unreal moment. It was like, ‘Oh my God, we just beat them.’”
“It means a lot,” Myers said. “I felt this was a huge win. Not for this just being (a regional final), but beating this team. To do this is such an accomplishment.”
“It’s something we’ve been working for this whole year, beating those teams we knew we could beat who had beaten us,” Mueller said. “It was just pushing, pushing as hard as we could.”
The Crusaders fell a step away from the state championship match last season. They’re back for another opportunity.
“We’ve all been working for this so much,” Myers said. “We really pulled through as a team, and made our dreams happen. We pulled through, and showed everyone who we really are.”
“We still have goals to achieve,” Bendlage said, “and I know we’re going to achieve all of them.”
“I think this was one of the toughest years we’ve had as coaches,” Freesmeier said. “It was one of the toughest years these players have had. They overcame that.
“And we’re going to state.”
mkoelker23
Melissa is an outstanding coach. Her team reflects her personality, tough, unselfish, and gritty to the end. Congrats HTC coaches and team, best of luck at the state tournament.
Thursday, October 27, 2022 Report this