Chaplinski named league’s best; 2nd team for two more

Seven seniors filled just over half of the Gilman Pirates’ varsity roster and three of those seniors that have been on the roster the longest closed their careers as All-Eastern Cloverbelt Conference award winners.

Abby Chaplinski earned the biggest of those awards. Gilman’s four-year starter at the setting position was named the 2024 All-Eastern Cloverbelt Conference Player of the Year in the voting for this year’s allconference teams. Libero Kayleigh James moved up to this year’s All-ECC second team after gaining honorable mention last year. Claire Drier joins James on the second team. It’s her first All-ECC volleyball honor.

The awards follow a second straight highly successful season for Gilman under veteran head coach Janice Komanec. While the Pirates had their ups and downs in conference play, going 4-3 and landing in the fifth-place match of the Cloverbelt Crossovers, Gilman finished 18-11 overall and earned the program’s second straight WIAA regional championship, with this one coming in Division 5. This is the first year the WIAA has five divisions in its post-season tournament.

Chaplinski earned her second straight spot on the All-ECC first team and is likely to gain an All-State award from the Wisconsin Volleyball Coaches Association in the upcoming weeks. She earned Division 4 honorable mention.

She was chosen for the Player of the Year award over All-ECC first-team candidates Shelby Spata and Aubrey Waldhauser of conference champion and WIAA Division 5 sectional champion Columbus Catholic, Daelyn Rieck and Savana Thomsen of Colby, Addysen Wolf of Loyal and Alexa Stange of Spencer.

Chaplinski added another 631 assists this season to her already massive total and ends her Gilman career with 2,265 assists. That includes 201 in Gilman’s seven conference matches for an average of 7.2 assists per set. That basically matched her overall average of 7.1 assists per set.

Chaplinski had a season-high 41 assists in a five-set loss at Neillsville on Sept. 26, an average of 8.2 per set. She had 36 assists in Gilman’s turning-point match late in the season, a 3-2 come-frombehind win at Colby that sparking an eight-match winning streak. She had 31 assists in a 3-1 loss at Loyal Oct. 1 and 30 assists in a 3-1 win over Owen-Withee on Sept. 24.

Chaplinski had 38 assists and 33 assists in WIAA Division 5 regional wins over Wisconsin Rapids and Owen-Withee.

Setting, though, was not the only thing Chaplinski did for the Pirates. She had a career-high 124 kills in 2024, served at a .940 success rate with 51 aces and just 22 errors in 366 attempts, and ranked second on the team with 405 digs, an average of 4.6 per set. She also threw up the occasional block when she rotated to the front row. She surpassed the 1,000-dig mark for her career this year as well, finishing with 1,157.

In conference play, Chaplinski had 31 digs against Neillsville, 23 against Colby and 20 against Loyal. Her season-high was 33 in a 3-1 non-conference win over Abbotsford on Sept. 12. She had 26 in the regional final win over Owen-Withee.

Several of her kills came on her uncanny knack for knowing when to simply dump a shot into an out-ofposition defense. James was again Gilman’s competitively-fierce and reliable presence in the back row as Gilman’s libero. She led Gilman with 446 digs overall, an average of 5.0 per set and 15.4 per match. Another four-year varsity player, James finished with 1,146 career digs. James collected 132 of this year’s digs in conference play, averaging 4.7 per set and 18.9 per match. Like last year, her serve percentage was outstanding at .963 with just 10 errors in 273 serves. That included 18 aces. In conference play, James’ serving was nearly perfect at 73 of 74. She added 56 assists. Fifteen of the aces and 18 of the assists came in conference play.

James had a season-high 32 digs in the tough five-set loss to Neillsville and had 27 in the regional final win over Owen-Withee. She had 24 in the big win at Colby and 23 more in the regular-season win against Owen-Withee. She collected six assists in a match twice during conference losses at Loyal and Columbus Catholic. She had five in the team’s 3-1 regional semifinal win over Assumption.

An impressive leaper with a powerful swing when she got it cranked up, Drier was the Pirates’ outside hitter that opponents had to respect most.

Another senior who has four years of varsity experience, Drier finished 2024 with a career-high 261 kills for an average of 2.9 per set. Eighty-four of the kills came in conference play for an average of three per set.

Drier’s jump serves were also a weapon as she led the Pirates with 60 aces, including 12 in the Sept. 24 win over Owen-Withee. Of those aces, 21 came in conference play.

An all-around player in Gilman’s rotation, Drier picked up 281 digs during the season, an average of 3.2 per set. She had 83 of those digs in ECC matches, including 16 against Owen-Withee.

Drier had a season-high 19 kills at Neillsville, had 15 in the Colby win and 14 against a strong Loyal squad. Drier had 17 kills in the regional semifinal win over Assumption and 17 against Abbotsford for season-high averages of 4.3 per set.

Gilman was 10-10 before its rally from a 2-0 deficit at Colby set up its late-season run that included the championship in its own invitational on Oct. 12. The Pirates swept all four opponents that day, including a strong Phillips team.

The run ended Thursday with a 3-1 sectional semifinal loss at Columbus Catholic, who played Newman Catholic today, Thursday, in a WIAA Division 5 state semifinal at the Resch Center in Green Bay.

Claire Drier Second Team

Gilman’s Abby Chaplinski, pictured serving during a Sept. 19 match against Prentice, was named the 2024 Eastern Cloverbelt Conference Player of the Year by the league’s coaches at the end of the regular season. MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS