Falcons set to fly high
The Abbotsford Falcons volleyball team has taken its first steps into a new season, starting off with a second place finish at the varsity tournament held in Wisconsin Rapids this past weekend. It’s a solid start to a season for a team that has some high expectations for themselves as they eye a Marawood-North crown and another chance to make a playoff run.
The Falcons will be returning a decent portion of the 2021 team that took second in the Marawood-North and advanced to the regional finals last season.
Chief among those will be seniors Haylee Soyk and Adriana Rivera. Soyk, who is listed as a middle and outside hitter, is entering her fourth year on the varsity squad and Rivera, the team’s libero and expected core of the team’s defense, was elected as her class’s representative on the team’s new leadership council.
The council is something that new head coach John Kreeger, who was previously the junior varsity volleyball coach, has instituted to help ease the transition to a new coach and to give the athletes more ownership over their team.
“It’s about giving the kids the opportunity to lead their team,” Kreeger said. “This year, we instituted a leadership council. The kids voted for someone from their class, so freshmen voted for a freshman, sophomores voted for a sophomore, and those kids are ones who will make decisions for the team.”
It’s a system that Kreeger hopes built engagement over the summer and makes an adjustment to how the team sees itself as a whole, not just as varsity and junior varsity. And while he and his staff offers guidance and advice, he says that the council was largely in charge of organizing much of what the team did in the off-season.
“For the summer, they planned any workouts they wanted to do, if they wanted to get together for team bonding, they’re the ones that took care of that,” he stated. “They ran their own summer league and got together for preseason tournaments.”
The system ideally has built upon a team chemistry that was apparent before Kreeger began as head coach.
“They’ve played a lot of sports together,” he said. “A lot of my kids are three sport athletes. They do a ton of things together and I think they can see each other’s potential.”
It’s a potential that has created some high expectations for the team going into the season. Kreeger believes that the team can challenge for a conference title and push past the regionals for the first time in over a decade and it’s an expectation that the players have for themselves as well. Potentially standing in their way is an Athens team that will also be returning much of their starting lineup from last year and Phillips, which, while losing several of their players to graduation, usually puts together a solid lineup, Kreeger notes. Athens has started the year out 6-0 and has only dropped two sets and Phillips went 2-0 at a tournament in Marathon this past weekend.
The key to reaching the goals the team has set for itself lies upon utilizing the team’s athleticism and speed. As the Falcons will be lacking the height of some other teams, they will need to try to make their opponents uncomfortable with aggressive serving to get them out of system. It’s then that they can best use their best attributes.
“We’re going to be very athletic and mobile,” Kreeger said. “We’re going to run an extremely fast offense.”
“When we match up with bigger teams early in the year in tournaments, we’ll see what it’s like when they get that block put in front of them,” he added.
In addition to the seniors, the varsity team’s makeup is largely juniors, with Sydney Falteisek, Briseida Escalara, Stephanie Espino, Calley Ruesch, and Sommer Brodhagen expected to make key contributions. Sophomores Halie VanLuven and Tatum Bargender and freshman Faith Sperl are also slated to receive some time in the rotation.
In their first action of the season, Abbotsford displayed some solid play at the invitational held in Wisconsin Rapids. The Falcons were punching above their weight-class the entire weekend, playing Division 1 and Division 2 teams like Wausau East and Ashwaubenon.
Abbotsford went 3-0 in matches against teams not named Baldwin-Woodville. They defeated host Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln in two straight sets, 25-18 and 25-19 and took down Wausau East in similar fashion, winning sets 25-17 and 25-18. Ashwaubenon gave the Falcons a little more trouble, as Abbotsford split the first two sets with the Jaguars 25-16 and 22-25, but they eventually emerged victorious by taking the final set 15-14. They also faced Baldwin-Woodville twice and couldn’t quite find a way to get a set off of the Blackhawks, falling 25-11, 25-20, 25-11, and 25-15 across the two matches.
They also defeated Waupaca this last Tuesday. After dropping the first set, Abbotsford came back to win 3-1 and taking the final sets 25-18, 25-21, and 25-14.
The Falcons will be back in action this coming weekend, participating in a tournament held in Marshfield on September 3. Their first conference match is scheduled for next Tuesday, September 6, when Abbotsford must travel to face the Prentice Buccaneers.
