Stewartville advances to volleyball state semifinals
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Stewartville is no stranger to a comeback.
In the section final against Byron, the Tigers dropped set one but rallied to take the match 3-2. Then, before that, in the semifinal match against Red Wing, they were down 7-1 at the start of set one. Once again, they bounced back to take home the sweep and a trip to the section final match.
Wednesday was the same story.
No. 3 Stewartville dropped set one to No. 6 seeded Cretin-Derham Hall 25-23. It was a fairly even fight the whole way until the Raiders scored four straight points giving them a 23-20 lead.
"It's been a theme for us. We start slow, and we know it," First-year Stewartville head coach Sammy Pedersen said. "I don't think we panic in those situations, and we're very comfortable and confident, which is kind of a weird place to be in, but we got a resilient team. So being able to be like, 'We've been here before; we've battled out of this,' is something that our girls know that we can do."
The Tigers settled in during set two and bounced back, scoring stretches of four and five points to hoist them to a 25-13 win. Stewartville had another strong night at the net with its hitters leading the way.
The Raiders jumped out to 3-1 start in set three, serving well and delivering mighty kills that Stewartville couldn't return. The Tigers stuck with it and pulled ahead to make it a 17-14 game. A final kill from junior hitter Ella Theobald handed the Tigers a 25-19 win in set three and a 2-1 lead in the match.
The Tigers went on a 12-point run at the start of set four and dominated the rest of the way for a final score of 25-8.
As the higher seed, Stewartville had a lot to lose and was matched up with a very talented CDH (19-13) team that gave the Tigers a run for their money in set one. Despite this, the Tigers demonstrated why they are competing for a state championship.
"They just don't want to lose, and they don't give up," Pedersen said. "They work hard for everything. Doesn't matter what the score is, we're still working hard. Which I think we were able to even see after that little bit of a delay there in the last set. (It) could have been easy for us to kind of mentally check out, and we stayed locked in."
Stewartville continues its run for the sixth state title in program history as its enjoying its first tournament appearance since 2019. The girls on the team are all new to the state tournament scene and handled it well.
"It's definitely really fun to be at state, I've gone in other sports, but this is so different," said Theobald, who had a great night at the net. "I feel like our student section definitely helps bring energy. And just looking out into the crowd and just seeing your whole town behind you is definitely something special."
Junior middle hitter Dream Petersohn is another part of Stewartville's commanding group of attackers and added a few key kills for the Tigers on Wednesday.
"It's a really good feeling having all of your hard work throughout the season pay off and getting to do something fun like this," Petersohn said. "Spending so much time with your team and missing school. And also, it's really fun to have good competition every day, we're expecting good competition throughout this whole tournament. Which, overall, it makes us a better team."
The Tigers (27-4) advance to the semifinals against No. 2 Marshall at 11 a.m. on Friday at Xcel Energy Center.
"I think we're all just super thankful to be here," senior setter Kaylee Lehrman said. "We know that we've worked so hard for this season and it's finally paying off. We won our first game, so now we just want to keep doing that for the next few games that we have."
