Falcons push for top with quick-pace attack
In what looks to be another competitive year in the Marawood-North conference, the Abbotsford Falcons volleyball team looks to take the next step forward towards competing for the conference crown and beyond. With a majority of their lineup returning from last season and a full year under head coach John Kreeger’s system under their belts, the Falcons look poised to take a shot at the goals they have set for themselves.
Last season, the team was a point away from sending their second-round playoff match with Auburndale into a fifth and final set. After falling 2-0 in the first two sets, the Falcons had battled back, winning the third and taking a 24-22 advantage over the Eagles in the fourth. However, they could not quite close the deal, eventually falling 27-25 to the team that would go on to win the regional.
While they will be short key pieces of that 2022 squad, namely first-team all-conference middle Haylee Soyk and all-conference honorable mention libero Adriana Fuentes-Rivera, they will still have plenty of returning talent to draw upon.
2022 second-team all-conference selection Sydney Falteisek appears to be the most likely candidate to try to fill the void left by Soyk in the center of the Falcons offense. She was second on the team in kills from the other middle hitter position last year and garnered the team’s best hitting percentage. However, she will have more than enough help from what Kreeger hopes will be a multi-faceted attack.
“We have a lot of hitters,” Kreeger said. “And our setters can put the ball just about anywhere. There’s one rotation this year where we will have one setter and five hitters that can attack from anywhere. We don’t really utilize defensive substitutions as much because we want hitters at the tempo we have and we want to hit the ball no matter where we set the ball. One of our biggest assets is that every girl that steps on the court is expecting to get the ball and we don’t rely on just one person.”
Seniors Briseida Escelara and Calley Ruesch served primarily as outside hitters for the Falcons last season and will pick up the role again this year and it is a position group that Kreeger has seen a lot of improvement from.
“Our outsides look a lot stronger than last year,” he said. “The biggest jump right now might be Calley; she’s taken a huge step forward this summer and she’s much more aggressive than last season. We want to be aggressive, to push the limits of everything we do and they’ve really embraced that.”
All-conference honorable mention Sommer Brodhagen paired up with Faith Sperl to serve as the Falcons’ setters last season and both will be returning to this year’s lineup. In the quick-hitting offense Abbotsford is trying to achieve, both will continue to be the linchpins in finding the open spots. Brodhagen also serves as an additional offensive threat as a hitter, registering 104 kills last year, fourth on the team.
The Falcons once again lack height, but the Abbotsford coaching staff hopes that their fast-paced, aggressive system and the fact that they have so many avenues for attack can mitigate problems getting around blocks. Heading into year two of that system will hopefully yield even greater results.
“You could tell at the beginning of the year, it was a little rough,” Kreeger said. “We run a very quick tempo and in the state, we’ve seen only a handful of teams that even attempt to run at the tempo we do. It’s a very difficult thing to do and so the strides the girls have made with that, where we are at on the court right now this year, is much closer to where we were at the end of the season last year then it was at the start of last year. You can almost sense a culture change coming, the seniors last year bought in, the seniors this year are buying and now you can see some of the younger kids starting to buy in as well.”
The hope is to transition that better grasp of the offense and defense into postseason success. Abbotsford is looking to put themselves in the thick of the hunt for the Marawood-North crown this season and potentially earn some hardware come the WIAA playoffs.
“We would love to get a plaque back in this building,” Kreeger said. “It’s been 20 years since a regional title has come back to Abbotsford. So that’s something we are aiming for.”
The Falcons opened their season with two games in Cadott on Tuesday evening, where they faced off against the Hornets and Neillsville. Their next competition will be in Wisconsin Rapids, where they will take part in a tournament on Saturday, Aug. 26.
