The UW-Eau Claire women’s volleyball team fell just short at the St. Norbert Tournament (De Pere) last weekend, dropping their final game to host team St. Norbert 3-0 after winning their first three games.
Senior Amy Bomgren gave plenty of credit to the host school, but also said the team may have let up a bit after storming through the rest of the field.
“They had a really great defense,” Bomgren said. “It was hard to find open spots all day. After we beat UW-Superior 3-0 though, I think we lost a little bit of
our focus.”
Despite an inspired performance by Anne Satterlee, who earned All-Tournament honors playing in her hometown of De Pere, a Claire dropped three straight sets 25-21, 25-23, and 25-22.
Head Coach Kim Wudi saw a lack of focus from her squad and noted they may have come into the match a little overconfident.
“The big thing is we didn’t play aggressively enough against their defense,” Wudi said. “We underestimated their ability and their transition game. We kept expecting them to break and thought we could play mediocre volleyball and come away with the win. That wasn’t the case.”
Overall, there was more positive than negative to take away from the weekend tournament. The Blugolds had strong showings against two conference teams with a 3-0 shutout of UW-Superior on day two of the tournament and a character building, come from behind victory on day one against UW-River Falls and one of the conference’s great
talents, Erin Green.
“Being down 2-1 against River Falls and being able to force a fifth game and pull it off was big,” Wudi said. “To know we can win a match when we’ve been down and compete with a team with an outstanding All-American talent is great.”
It was back and forth for the majority of the match. Action began with the Blugolds dropping the first set to the Falcons 25-19. Eau Claire bounced back though, winning the second set 25-14. The Blugolds fell 25-18 in the third, giving River Falls a 2-1 lead. The Blugolds proved to have one more rally in them though, winning the fourth game 25-18 to force a fifth. They won the final game 15-11 for the match.
Bomgren said the team comes in with extra energy against conference opponents, which helps explain the emotional letdown against St. Norbert. Even the familiarity of an opponent like Carthage provided the Blugolds with a little
extra juice.
“We were really psyched up to play a conference opponent in River Falls,” Bomgren said. “Even against Carthage, we have a rivalry after playing them so many times. I think being able to face conference teams gives us confidence moving forward, but we need to keep our intensity up at all times and always show up
to play.”
Despite the loss to St. Norbert, Wudi saw many positives from her club and is confident that they’re moving in the right direction.
“One of the things that stands out is that we played consistently and moved past mistakes well,” Wudi said. “We
always want to learn from the things we did well as well as the things we didn’t
do well.”
As the team prepares to enter the meat of their season and inches closer to the postseason, their ability to grow and learn from mistakes will be pivotal. Thus far, Wudi is happy with what she’s seen from her squad and is confident moving forward.
“We have a target on our back,” Wudi said. “We need to come out with high energy and compete. Our seniors are playing great and our young middles are improving. We’re definitely getting better as a team. We just need to keep getting those wins.”
After a doubleheader against Northland College and St. Scholastica on Wednesday, the team will prepare for their final home game of the season at 2 p.m. on Saturday when they host
UW-Oshkosh.
