State Tourney

LINCOLN — Cedar Catholic’s up and down season came to a close Thursday afternoon at the Pinnacle Bank Arena.

Cedar tried to pull yet another upset in their first-round contest with 2019 D2 State Champ BDS.

The Lady Trojans got off to a good start in their efforts, earning a 25-17 first-set win.

BDS regrouped after that to earn 25-17, 25-23, 25-18 decisions and advance to the state semifinals.

Laney Kathol (12 kills), Brynn Wortmann (10 kills, 21 digs), Makenna Noecker (seven kills, 14 digs) and Megan Heimes (29 digs) led the way for Cedar in the defeat.

“I am extremely proud of our team being able to fight through our tough schedule against some amazing teams this season, and being able to take the lessons learned and keep moving toward the goal of state volleyball,” CCHS head coach Denae Buss said. “The bar has been set so high by the teams that came before, this group wanted to achieve the same goal. We really came on strong and practiced well this week.

The team got off to a good start on the Pinnacle Bank Arena floor, but just couldn’t keep the momentum, Buss said.

“In our game against BDS, we really came out with a lot of energy and confidence and were ready to go. We did a lot of things right in that game but didn’t make a few key adjustments to be able to read sometimes on defense. However, I am very proud of the effort put in by our team in this game. We have not been that aggressive on defense, yet so far this season.”

Wortmann, Heimes, Gracie Dickes and Brooklyn Kuehn will graduate and so once again the program will have to retool without a number of familiar and important faces.

“These four girls have put so much into volleyball,” Buss said. “They have all played club volleyball in the off seasons, and done everything I asked of them, to lead the team to this point. Brooklyn was able to provide some much-needed balance and throw teams off with her left hand and net play. Brynn really blossomed into a strong sixrotation outside that was able to get things done. Megan was our workhorse, that powered the team along with her consistency in passing and defense and excitement for everyone. Gracie really came on strong and helped lead the final push by playing faster and aggressive on defense.”

The loss of the four veterans only means Buss has some work to do to keep the boat afloat, but she should have plenty of talent to work with.

“Going forward, we hope to be another strong team and end, right where we did this year, at the state tournament,” Buss said. “We will have a good core back from this season, that will need to step into big roles and lead the team and younger girls see the court next season. I have no doubt that they will all step up to form a great team and lead us back to the state tournament next season.”

Hopefully it will be a season without the extra shadow or fear and worry associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This season presented its challenges, but our team was extremely fortunate to not face COVID setbacks as some other teams did,” Buss said. “It is stressful to worry about the ‘what ifs,’ but we tried to keep it as normal as possible and just keep reaching for our goals.

“We would like to applaud the teams that did have those setbacks and the kids that stepped up on their teams, and all of our administrators teachers that work so hard to keep the schools going for us to be able to continue.”

Heimes won’t be as her career has ended and she, for one, was “very grateful” that the team could finish its season.”

“We didn’t really know if we were going one day or the whole season would come so we took it one day at a time,” she said. “It went by so fast. We worked hard, had fun and got better at the end of the day. I just love playing this game.”

In many ways the big picture would take a back seat to the here and now during the pandemic, but Heimes readily admits that the team set its sights on another state run.

“It’s hard to show up every single day with so much stuff going on,” Heimes said.

She said that once they got to state, the team came out strong and were feeling very confident.

“We lost a little bit of our confidence at the start of the second set and couldn’t get over our errors and got into our heads,” Heimes said. “Now, we know we are going to go to state, and we have to make it no matter what and we are going to find our way.

“I am super proud of our team. We had a lot of young players without varsity experience who really stepped up.”

BDS 17 25 25 25

Cedar 25 17 23 18

KILLS

Cedar - Laney Kathol, 12; Brynn Wortmann, 10; Makenna Noecker, 7; Brooklyn Kuehn, 7; Cady Uttecht, 2; Gracie Dickes, 1; Meredith McGregor, 1. BDS - Macy Kamler, 15; Mariah Sliva, 10; Jordan Bolte, 7; JessaLynn Hudson, 5.

ACE SERVES

Cedar - Olivia Hamilton, 2; Brynn Wortmann, 1; Meredith McGregor, 1. BDS - Mariah Sliva, 2; Hannah Miller, 1; Taryn Fiala, 1; Jordan Bolte, 1.

BLOCKS

Cedar - Laney Kathol, 1; Brynn Wortmann, 1. BDS - Macy Kamler, 4; Mariah Sliva, 2; Taryn Fiala, 2; Taylor Sliva, 2; Jordan Bolte, 1; JessaLynn Hudson, 1.

DIGS Cedar - Megan Heimes, 29; Brynn Wortmann, 21;

Cedar - Megan Heimes, 29; Brynn Wortmann, 21; Meredith McGregor, 15; Makenna Noecker, 14; Cady Uttecht, 8; Gracie Dickes, 5; Olivia Hamilton, 1. BDS - Taylor Sliva, 15; Macy Kamler, 14; Jordan Bolte, 13; Taryn Fiala, 12; Hannah Miller, 11; Mariah Sliva, 8.

SET ASSISTS

Cedar - Cady Uttecht, 15; Meredith McGregor, 13; Laney Kathol, 1; Brynn Wortmann, 1; Gracie Dickes, 1. BDS - Jordan Bolte, 18; Hannah Miller, 12.

Stay in the know!

To get news alerts on your cell phone, get the Cedar County News app in the ITunes store or  in the Google Play Store.