Van Buren 2nd at SEISC tournament

WEST BURLINGTON - Van Buren had leads of five points eight different times over Mediapolis in the first set of the championship match of the Southeast Iowa Super Conference volleyball tournament Saturday at Southeastern Community College.

Van Buren, which is ranked fourth in Class 2A, gave up the lead to the Bullettes, who are ranked No. 6 in 2A, for the first time at 24-23 and lost 25-23.

The second set was a completely different set as Mepo took leads of 5-0, 8-1, 12-3, 15-5 and 22-6 before winning 25-11 to take the title.

'We eliminated our errors,” Mepo coach Erin Steffner said. 'We made a lot of serving errors in Game One. We took care of those and started serving tough. That made a big difference. Helaina Hilliard was finding openings and Ellie Gerber was connecting really well.”

'We got our butts kicked,” Van Buren coach Matt Zietler said. 'We could not put them away. We could not block.”

Van Buren and Mediapolis were two of four pool play winners with Central Lee and Holy Trinity the other two. Second-place pool winners also advanced to the finals and those were WACO, Cardinal, Notre Dame and New London.

WACO made the finals for the first time in school history and nearly took down Van Buren in the first round of the finals before falling 25-20, 25-17.

Cardinal survived a three-way tie with Central Lee and W-MU to advance to the finals and lost to Holy Trinity 25-17, 25-11.

Notre Dame lost to Mediapolis 25-14, 25-17.

New London and Central Lee may have played the most suspenseful match of the tournament with New London taking the first set 25-23, losing the second 28-26, taking a 10-5 lead in the third, but losing 15-13.

Van Buren downed Holy Trinity 24-15, 28-26 in the semifinals and Mepo downed Central Lee 25-17, 25-17. HTC took third with a 25-10, 25-20 win over Central Lee.

Zeitler was disappointed in how his team responded to the Bullettes' rally.

'They were throwing bullets at us and we could not receive them,” he said. 'They were better than us tonight, maybe it would be different if it was the best of five instead of a best of three. I am not too concerned about it. But I am concerned about some of my kids gave up. That is what concerns me. What I saw during some of the last points was three kids that were still into it and still going and the rest of them, their heads were all down. We are not going to get anywhere if that happens. I bet we had 12 kill errors in that last game. You can't be a fourth-ranked team and make that many errors.”

Zeitler was called for a yellow card during the semifinal.

'The ball is rolling behind us from the other court and they did not stop play, but I saw (the ref) look at it so I meant to get that yellow card. If he had not looked at it, I wouldn't of said anything. They should've stopped play.”

The tournament may have an influence on the postseason as far as who gets to play at home and who will face another ranked team.

'With us, Van Buren and Wilton (which is fifth in Class 2A) all right there and all being ranked, I don't know how they are going to separate us all,” Steffener said. 'It will be interesting. You would think this win t would give us a higher seeding, but you never know what the state is going to do.”

'We have to work on getting a little better,” Zeitler said. 'If we keep playing good, I think we'll be all right but we won't be above Mediapolis now. It would be cool to meet them at state instead of on the way there. There are some good teams out there.”