Ten years ago, Heartland Community School won the Class C-2 volleyball championship. The next year they made the state tournament only to fall in the first round.
Since then volleyball success has been kind of hard to come by. No trips to Lincoln. But, last season’s team finished 20-10 before losing in the sub-district final to BDS.
This year, coach Sarah Ostmeyer hopes that she might just have the team to get the communities of Henderson and Bradshaw driving down Interstate 80 come mid-November.
“It’s really early in the season,” Ostmeyer said, “but a lot of the girls have that goal on their list. For us this year, it’s a completely new district — we won’t see any team in the district on our schedule — so there will be fresh faces.
“We have talked about it. It’s been ten years since we won that state championship and it would be a fun way to celebrate to get back down to Lincoln. We have a great group of girls this year and we think they could get to state in multiple sports.”
For their part, the Heartland players got off to the perfect start last Thursday, defeating Class C-1 schools Sandy Creek (22-8 a season ago) and Wilber-Clatonia in a triangular. The Huskies are now ranked fourth in Class D-1.
The Huskies got a 25-16, 25-14 win over Wilber-Clatonia and followed in the night cap with a 25-20, 22-25, 25-22 win over the Cougars. Ostmeyer said it was an early season goal to start quick.
“We kind of put winning those first two matches as a goal to start the season off,” Ostmeyer said. “The last time we hosted the triangular we won it and we wanted to see if we could do it again. We had played Sandy Creek this summer and took a set from them so we knew we could play with them.”
“It was big to get our year started with two wins.”
Returning starters Megan Kroeker and Taylor Quiring led the way early for Huskies. Quiring, the 2016 Class D 400 meter champion, had 18 kills while hitting .364 in the two wins and Kroeker had seven kills, six ace serves and three blocks for the Huskies.
Ostmeyer said Heartland will rely on their experience and leadership early in the season.
“They will both be key players for us,” Ostmeyer said of the only two returning starters from a season ago. “Megan plays middle for us and just does a great job at the net and Taylor just brings a ton of power.”
While the Huskies are breaking in a freshman setter — Rhianna Wilhelm — they also relied on a pair of other seniors in the opening wins. Leslie Braun had six kills and three ace serves (the Huskies had 23 on the night) and Ellie Steingard added 12 kills and three blocks.
Tonight, the Huskies play Thayer Central before a big weekend tournament at Midland University in Fremont that is hosted by Class D-1, No. 3 Cedar Bluffs. The Huskies won the event last year.
“It’s a great atmosphere to go up there and play at Midland,” Ostmeyer said. “We have to get up early, but it’s great competition against other Class D-1 teams that we don’t usually see. And, as defending champs, that’s another thing we’d like to do is go up there and defend that title.”
Striv Standouts
VOLLEYBALL: Lesley and Hayley Fox, St. Paul. Sister act combined for 24 kills in a sweep of Arcadia/Loup City and Ravenna on Tuesday. Wildcats are ranked sixth in Class C-1 and off to a 6-0 start after also winning Hershey Invitational.
FOOTBALL: Tanner Wroblewski, St. Paul. Junior quarterback threw for 180 yards and two scores and ran 21 times for 55 yards and a score in a 22-14 win over Cross County. Has 272 yards passing and 188 rushing for 2-0 Wildcats who have already doubled last year’s win total.
FOOTBALL: Zach King, Kearney. The Bearcats gained just 192 yards off offense in a 20-17 overtime win over Lincoln East, so King took the game into his hands. The senior recorded 10 tackles and returned an interception 20 yards for a touchdown. Leo Palermo’s 27-yard field goal in the extra session was the difference.
FOOTBALL: Andy Waserman, Fairbury. Junior quarterback threw three touchdowns (22, 22, 46) and ran in from 40 yards as the Jeffs went to 2-0 defeating Syracuse 34-20. He totaled 115 yards passing and 53 rushing in the win.
Coaches: Want your athlete recognized as a Striv Standout or featured On the Sideline? Drop us an e-mail to [email protected] or [email protected]. Even better? Enter your stats into maxpreps.com and we’ll go looking. We can spot a good performance if it’s there for us see.
