No. 4 Nevada overwhelms Mustangs

Prairie City-Monroe’s volleyball team needed to play a near perfect match to dethrone Class 3A No. 4 Nevada in the Region 3 championship match on Tuesday.

The Mustangs couldn’t afford a slow start against a Cubs team which had already been to back-to-back state tournaments.

Unfortunately for PCM, Nevada made sure the Mustangs’ confidence was rattled early as they jumped out to a 20-1 start in the opening set and cruised to the straight set win at Newton Senior High School.

The Cubs earned the sweep with scores of 25-3, 25-14, 25-11. It was the 30th win of the season for Nevada, which will play Columbus Catholic in the opening round of its third straight state tournament next week.

“I was very proud of the girls,” PCM coach Krystal Ehn said. “They didn’t give up. They kept fighting until the end, and I couldn’t be prouder of them.”

Nevada coach Will Baumann used a football analogy (downhill running) to describe his team’s effort.

“I was really happy with how well we attacked,” Baumann said. “We didn’t lose the attacking mindset that whole first set. We were downhill running, going for every ball and our defense did a good job, too.

“The defense will be overlooked because we played pretty well offensively, but our defense and serve receive was excellent as well.”

For the Mustangs, it was the first time they reached the regional championship match in 10 years, according to Ehn.

But they were no match for Nevada, which went 10-0 this year against teams in the Heart of Iowa Conference.

“They are good. They have ball placements, and they played to our weaknesses,” Ehn said. “They got a little lucky with a few calls. They are taller than us. That is in their favor, too. We are still rebuilding.”

The Cubs (30-9) used a strong service run by Amaris Hornbuckle in the first set. With a 3-1 lead, Hornbuckle served for 17 straight points before Katie VandeWall ended the run with a blast at the net.

Nevada went on to win 25-3 though. Hornbuckle finished with five kills and six aces.

The Mustangs (10-27) were much more competitive in the final two sets. But Nevada turned a 6-4 lead into an 11-4 advantage. Abby Bremer finished off PCM later in the match with a trio of kills that put her team up 20-8.

Nevada led 6-0 in the final set. Ashley Van Gorp got the Mustangs on the board with a kill and an ace, but, led by Kati Cassabaum, the Cubs finished off PCM in straigh sets.

Cassabaum had a team-high 13 kills and three of them came in the final six points of the match. Nevada was 60-of-62 in serves with 11 aces.

Ehn took the Mustangs to the regional finals in her first year. She loses Van Gorp, Kendal Earley, Peyton Pool and Karina Van Dyke to graduation but returns 11 players who had significant playing time this season.

“This is the first time in 10 years that the program went three rounds deep,” Ehn said. “They worked really hard. A lot of people didn’t think we’d do anything this year. They didn’t have much confidence in us. Our win record didn’t truly show how good we were this year. We played a lot of 4A and 5A schools in tournaments that we unfortunately lost to.”

Nevada will be the No. 3 seed for the state tournament. The Cubs match with sixth-seeded Columbus Catholic (20-14) begins at 10 a.m. Wednesday. Nevada reached the state semifinals last year after losing in round one in 2013.

“We want this year to be the year to get the finals, but we wanted last year to be that year, too,” Baumann said. “You get down to that state tournament and it’s a different animal. Every game is for real and you don’t get to not play well and continue to play.”