Cheboygan volleyball suffers 3-1 SAC home defeat to Rudyard

CHEBOYGAN – Kris Jewell doesn’t like to lose.

On Tuesday, in a critical Straits Area Conference clash, the Cheboygan volleyball coach found herself extremely frustrated following what ended up being one of the more disappointing defeats of her tenure.

Needing to win to still have a realistic shot at winning the SAC, Jewell’s Chiefs suffered a 3-1 loss to the Rudyard Bulldogs (24-26, 25-19, 20-25, 15-25) in Cheboygan.

After weeks of building momentum and confidence, the Chiefs (13-8-4, 1-2) fell flat in a contest that was there for the taking.

The theme of the night for the Chiefs? Slow starts in almost every set.

“We lost – it was flat again,” said Jewell. “We have to work on getting the first few points of the set. Set one, down 6-12. Set two, up 8-5. Set three, down 3-7. Set four, down 0-13. There is a pattern you can’t ignore.”

The slow starts began in the opening set for the Chiefs, who fell into a 13-6 hole against the strong hitters of Rudyard. However, the Chiefs showed resiliency by coming all the way back to take a 24-22 advantage. Unfortunately for the Chiefs, hitting miscues resulted in four straight points for the Bulldogs, who took a 1-0 lead in the match.

“We got complacent,” Jewell said. “We committed four hitting errors to give them (Rudyard) set one. Not going to bode well with that kind of momentum killer. I was glad to see that we didn’t give in during set two. Our passes were too tight. We got called in the net a lot.”

The good news for Jewell was her team responded by opening up a 15-8 lead in the second set. While the Bulldogs (2-1 SAC) did cut the deficit to four, the Chiefs evened things up with a win.

The Chiefs felt good about their chances at 1-1, but another poor start saw them fall behind 17-9 in the third. Again, the Chiefs battled back, this time with a 10-3 run to trim their deficit to 20-19. But like the first set, the Chiefs struggled to finish and fell behind 2-1 in the match after Rudyard took five out of the final six points.

Clearly reeling from the third-set loss, the Chiefs uncharacteristically lost the first 13 points of the fourth. From there, it was smooth sailing for the Bulldogs, who kept themselves right in the thick of things for a conference crown.

“I am super happy with how the girls played,” said Rudyard coach Jodie Postma. “The amount of hustle that they’re doing and coverage, that makes me super excited to watch the girls do that. I like that they stay mentally tough, and they’re hungry. They want it.”

At key moments – like the latter parts of the first and third sets – the Bulldogs remained composed and captured a big win on the road.

“The girls started just executing a little bit more of our plans on where to place the ball and to go after it,” Postma said. “The part I was happy to see was that they started running our offense a little bit more and doing what we wanted. The plan was to knock them (Cheboygan) off their square.”

For the Chiefs, senior middle hitter Mya Collino had another solid night, tallying 12 kills and four blocks, while fellow senior Cassidy Jewell tallied 11 digs defensively. Junior Ava Bury, who had a huge serving run to help the Chiefs take the 24-22 lead in the first, finished with 12 serving points and six aces.

“It was nice to see Mya still swinging hard,” Jewell said. “It hasn’t been a fluke. She’s been consistent. Lia (Basanese) does too, even though she didn’t get enough good sets to really swing like she does. But she hit smart, too.”

Postma praised the play of her hitters, who ended up overwhelming the Chiefs at different moments of the contest.

“They are very good hitters. When they’re on, gosh, they’re pretty unstoppable,” Postma said. “That part of it is super exciting because we do have a plethora of hitters, and our setter’s coming along, so I’m super excited with where the girls are taking us this year. I’m super happy with how they played.”

With the victory, the Bulldogs – a team that recently suffered a five-set loss to SAC leader Sault Ste. Marie – have positioned themselves well going into the upcoming conference tournament in Cheboygan.

“I feel like we’re in the hunt for it,” Postma said. “The girls, they want it. We got some hungry players this year. We want to go as far as we want. We got knocked off (n the state tournament) a little early last year, so we’re working on some different stuff to keep that mental toughness and that grind when you get down behind and how to pick your head up and just keep going.”

For Rudyard, Klaire Kwiakowski led with 14 kills and 11 digs, while Laine Grenfell tallied 12 kills and 15 digs, Eve Cheney had 10 kills and 10 digs, and Summer Smith added 19 assists and 25 digs.

As for the Chiefs, they’ll now have plenty of work to do after two defeats on the conference schedule.

Cheboygan will be back in action when it hosts Onaway and Sault Ste. Marie in a tri-meet at 5:30 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Cheboygan Daily Tribune: Cheboygan volleyball suffers 3-1 SAC home defeat to Rudyard