‘You could taste it’: QND lets late lead get away in third set of super-sectional

CLINTON, Ill. — Four points.

Four lousy, stinkin’ points.

The Quincy Notre Dame girls volleyball team dominated the first set, overcame a disastrous second set and rebounded to lead 21-15 in the third set of Friday night’s Class 2A super-sectional volleyball match at Clinton High School.

“You could taste it,” senior captain Maggie Drew said. “We really, really felt like we were going to win.

“And then all of a sudden … “

The Raiders gave up three points on ball handling errors, and Pleasant Plains scored the next three points to tie the score at 21. QND held its last lead at 23-22, but Plains scored the last three points of the match to claim a 14-25, 25-12, 25-23 victory.

Pleasant Plains (33-5) advances to next weekend’s Class 2A state tournament and will play Chicago Christian in the semifinals on Friday at Redbird Arena in Normal. The loss ends QND’s season at 32-5.

‘It’s the worst feeling ever’ 

“It’s like the worst feeling ever being that close,” Drew said. “Right now, it’s so hard not to just go back and think about everything wrong that you did in the game that could have won it for us.”

The Raiders led 11-6 in the third set after Annie Eaton’s free ball on the third hit hit the floor. After a Plains timeout, three consecutive kills by the Cardinals made the score 11-9.

QND responded with a five-point run. Two hitting errors and a passing error by the Cardinals gave the Raiders a commanding 16-9 lead. The teams then traded points, with Emma Borrowman’s kill putting Notre Dame on top 21-15.

Then, with their top hitters (Abbey Schreacke and Emma Hoing) on the bench because of the rotation, the Raiders fell apart.

A service error, a serve reception error and an error on Eaton for stepping over the center line made the score 21-18. A kill by Peyton Bergschneider, a tip by Sienna Hadley and a serving ace by Audrey Grieser tied the score.

“We weren’t swinging like we probably should have been and a little bit too much tipping,” Raiders coach Courtney Kvitle said. “They were able to handle the tip and then score.”

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Bergschneider had eight kills in third set for Cardinals

Bergschneider took over late in the game. Her kills accounted for three of Plains’ last four points. She had eight kills in the third set.

“Peyton came through huge for us,” Cardinals coach Denise Dufour said. “She really was trying to mix things up, trying to find holes. She was finally kind of getting into her rhythm and just feeling it. I told Hannah (Smith, the Cardinals’ setter) to set her because I knew she was feeling it. She just had the confidence to swing and got the kills that we needed.”

On the final point, a tip by Schreacke was dug up, and when Plains returned the ball over the net, QND’s first pass went into the net.

“They just dug deep,” Dufour said. “They trusted, and they just kept playing.”

“it was just a good match,” Kvitle said,  “I mean, both teams played good and made errors, and they came out on top in the end. We kept saying to play games of five points each, and we lost the last game.”

Plains struggled with Raiders’ serve in first set

The Raiders appeared to be ready to make it a short night. Leading 12-9 in the first set, QND rattled off eight straight points off two blocks by Schreacke, three hitting errors by Plains, two kills by Delaney Beard and an ace by Faith Kientzle. Hoing had seven kills in the first set.

Plains made 12 service reception mistakes in the first set.

“There were a lot of free balls coming our way,” Kvitle said.

“We just talked about ‘ankles up,’” Dufour said she told her team after the first set. “We’re going to play any ball from the ankles up, because their serves were floating. We had to trust that if a ball is lower than our ankles, and we’re at that backline, we’re going to let it go. Our serve receive had to step up. That was, I feel, the difference coming into set two. We just played so much better out of serve receive and kept our system in place.”

As impressive as the Raiders were in the first set, they were overwhelmed in the second set. They only scored three points with the serve and had three serving errors. They also gave up seven points on ball handling mistakes.

QND fell behind 10-2, then 15-4 in second set

Plains raced to a 10-2 lead, then went up 15-4. QND never got closer than nine points in the set after that.

“They were serving us super deep,” Kvitle said. “We couldn’t pass. We had a really hard time because we haven’t seen serving like that.”

“I think we got a little ahead of ourselves,” Drew said. “We started thinking about state. But we came out in the third set and played hard.”

Few eyes were dry as the players filed out of the locker room afterward.

“Nobody could say much,” Drew said. “Of course, everyone’s upset. It’s just kind of like shock. Just being ahead that whole third set, knowing we’re going to win this game. We’re going to win this game. Having that lead, we were able to be comfortable.

“I think we all just really don’t know what happened, you know?”