SOLID SEASON ENDS EARLY FOR WOLVES IN 4B ACTION
Menno battles Freeman Public for five dramatic sets, but are edged in the end
When the seven seniors who were part of this year’s volleyball team at Menno High School look back on their final fall with the Wolves, their reflection will likely be bittersweet. On one hand, they helped lead the team to one of its finest seasons in recent memory and best since 2004, the year the Wolves came up just one match short of advancing to the state tournament.
On the other hand, their senior season ended earlier than they had planned for — in the second round of a region tournament they had hopes of cracking. Not only that, but the loss was a brutal five-set heartstopper, and it came against their biggest rival — Freeman Public.
But head coach Rachel Stokes, who just wrapped up her 14th season at the helm, says the Nov. 5 loss in the second round of the Region 4B Tournament should not and will not define a season that, at one point, had the Wolves sitting at 14-7.
“It was a very good year,” she said. “You always hope for more and, of course, I was hoping for a little more, but it was fun — really fun.”
Menno’s play during the regular season was strong enough to earn the girls a No. 3 seed in the 11-team region and a first-round bye, and that resulted in another showdown with Freeman Public — the No. 6 seed with which the Wolves had split during the regular season. And while the Flyers drew first blood by winning the opening set, the Wolves fired off back-to-back set wins to take a 2-1 lead.
Then, after Freeman evened up the match at 2-2, Menno built another lead, this time at 8-4 in the fifth and final frame. But the Wolves couldn’t close the deal, with the Flyers winning 11 of the final 15 points, and Menno saw its season come to a close at 16-12.
“I had all the ranges of feeling throughout the match,” said Stokes. “We played good volleyball and the girls were having so much fun doing it, but (we struggled) with little things here and there. It wasn’t just this or just that.”
And the atmosphere on the Wolves’ home court was electric.
“Great crowd, great student section, and the girls on the bench were into it,” said the coach. “It was fun. It was an exciting match and a good one to end with.”
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a tough locker room after the match.
“There were tears,” Stokes said. “You’re upset about it, but I really tried to stress the positive points, even with it being hard. It’s not where we wanted to be and not how we wanted our season to end, but we worked hard the entire match and never got down.”
That was true of the season as a whole, as well. Even in some of the losses that came against good teams, the Wolves were competitive, and that’s what kept the team fighting in the later part of the season when Menno lost four matches in eight nights.
“We had our dips that last month, but we brought it back up in the two matches before regions,” Stokes said. “Even the best teams have areas where they slump and need to pull themselves back up, and I thought we did that.”
The seniors to which Stokes and the Wolves are saying goodbye are Ellyana Ulmer, Nora Robb, Haylee Hall, Joslynn Fischer, Taylor Freier, Samantha Allvin and Desiree Yosten; they were team leaders and will be missed.
“They just had such good chemistry throughout the entire season,” Stokes said of her team. “It was fun coaching them and watching them work together, get excited when things were going well, and pick each other up when things were struggling.”
Ulmer set a new school record with 551 single-season digs, surpassing the old mark of 486 reached by Ashton Vaith in 2017. Freier was second on the team this season with 345 digs.
Junior Lexie McNinch led the way with 170 kills followed by Amanda Rames — also a junior — with 132.
Fischer had 270 set assists and 54 aces to lead the Wolves this fall, and Robb added 200 set assists, and Ulmer and Freier both had 25 aces.
