No. 4 Van Buren puts it all together to advance

BURLINGTON - Volleyball is a team game. Sure, it helps to have some tall hitters. Sure, it helps to have some defensive specialists who can dig almost any ball. Sure, it helps to have a setter who gets to any pass and puts it on the net.

It sure helps to have all of them operating at a high level like Van Buren did Thursday at Father Minett Gymnasium in one of four Southeast Iowa Super Conference pools. The top two teams in each pool advance to Saturday's finals at Southeastern Community College.

Van Buren went 4-0 with wins of 21-7, 21-8 over Columbus, 21-3, 21-3 over Hillcrest, 21-10, 21-8 over Wapello and 21-15, 21-17 over host Notre Dame.

'This is a good team, athletically, hitting, moving, all of it,” Van Buren head coach Matt Zeitler said. 'Go ahead and find our weakness.”

The only team that came close was Notre Dame, which also advances to Saturday's finals with a 3-1 record, defeating Wapello 21-14, 24-22, Columbus 21-8, 21-11 and Hillcrest 21-4, 21-10.

'Notre Dame is a good team and I hate to say that because I am not a fan of Notre Dame,” Zeitler said. 'Tonight seemed fairly easy until Notre Dame. They got some of the best jumpers around. We made very few mistakes and that is very hard to do when you're playing teams with the different skill levels that we faced. I thought we did a pretty good job staying focused.”

Columbus went 1-3 with the win coming against Hillcrest 23-21, 21-7. Columbus also lost to Wapello 21-18, 21-5.

'We fought for every point that we got in our first game against Hillcrest,” Columbus coach Lori Beenen said. 'Then the second game we settled down and played.”

Columbus and Hillcrest were the two teams that had to play four straight matches. Every one else had a bye at some point in the evening.

'We didn't play our best and we know it,” Beenen said. 'We had made some changes in practice (Wednesday) and so we still have to get used to that. I hate that we didn't play as well as we could have but I'm not concerned about it. We are going to take this, look at it, say ‘oh my goodness' and then move forward.”

Hillcrest coach Tanna Boshart said her team had been moving forward until Thursday.

'I am never going to be frustrated when my kids put up a fight in a game. But I felt like, overall, we were not ready to play. It felt like we took steps backward instead of forward.”

As the season has gone on, the Ravens have progressed, although they suffered a setback two weeks ago in a home game against Louisa-Muscatine when senior Mia Graber tore an ACL in her knee. She tore the ACL in her other knee as a sophomore.

Boshart said the Ravens have had time to adjust to being without Graber.

'Obviously, we miss having her,” Boshart said. 'We miss her volleyball IQ and her sense of the game. One thing we lack is experience and she had that, so it's hard to work on experience in practice. The only time you get real experience is when you're playing games. You can't simulate that in practice. We need that. The losing has been difficult. It felt like things were getting more figured out until tonight. It did not feel like it was figured out.”

Van Buren has had things figured out for a while as they are currently ranked fourth in Class 2A. A possible showdown with sixth-ranked Mediapolis awaits in the finals Saturday.

'This is the way I want them to play,” Zeitler said of his Warriors. 'This is how they should play. This is how they can play. Are we really the fourth ranked team? I mean, I guess. If we play like this, we are.”

Van Buren has seniors Selena Sayre, Chloe Davidson, Madison Bartholomew, Grace Davidson, Logan Schmitt, Lexi Jirak and Taryn Scheuermann leading the way.

'I think we just keep getting better,” Zeitler said. 'I was really happy with my team. There was no letdown. We were full-bore ahead.”