ST. PAUL — Who needs the lead? Evidently not the Stewartville volleyball team, unless it’s the last lead of the match.
Stewartville erased game deficits of 1-0 and 2-1 and then fell behind 14-11 in the deciding fifth game before turning it around for a dramatic comeback win over Jordan in the semifinal round of the Class AA state volleyball tournament Friday night at Xcel Energy Center.
Third-seeded Stewartville advanced to today’s championship match with an exhausting and exhilarating 3-2 victory over No. 2 seed Jordan, the Tigers winning 21-25, 25-17, 18-25, 25-23, 18-16.
"It’s always hard to play when the other team has the momentum," conceded Stewartville middle hitter Hannah Tapp, who delivered the match point with a hard smash off a lunging Jordan defender to end the two-hour long match.
"It’s all about mental toughness, that’s we talked about between games and during timeouts," Tapp said."I don’t think anybody on our team had any doubts that we were going to win that fifth game."
ADVERTISEMENT
Hannah Tapp and her twin sister Paige matched each other with 20 kills to lead Stewartville’s hard-hitting attack. They also accounted for half of the Tigers’ 14 ace blocks, a key stat in the contest. Jordan had just eight ace blocks.
Jordan, which also played a long five-game match to get out of the quarterfinals on Thursday, got a starring performance from senior hitter Kelsey Chambers with 33 kills
Stewartville (26-6) will meet No. 1 seed Marshall (29-4) in the Class AA championship match at 3 p.m. today at Xcel Energy Center. Marshall advanced with a 3-1 win over Wadena-Deer Creek, the defending state champion.
It will be Stewartville’s eighth appearance in the state title match; the Tigers were state champs in 1991, 1997 and 2000, and finished second in 1995, 2001, 2005 and 2006.
