No. 4 Norwalk too much for Newton volleyball

A confident Newton volleyball team showed itself in the second set of the team’s Little Hawkeye Conference matchup with Class 4A No. 4 Norwalk on Tuesday.

But consistency remains a priority for the Cardinals as the Warriors left town with a 25-11, 25-18, 25-10 road win.

“We talk about the consistency factor a lot,” Newton head volleyball coach Heidi Woollums said. “That’s very important, and it comes with our serve receive. If we take care of our serve receive, we’ve shown we have players who can put the ball down. We also didn’t serve well enough in the first set.”

Morgan Frehse delivered a match-high 10 kills for the Cardinals in the loss. Her very first swing of the night gave Newton a 1-0 lead in the opening set, but her second kill didn’t come until the Cardinals trailed 16-6.

She added two more kills later in the set, and Newton took advantage of a few service errors from Norwalk, but the Warriors had too much depth and power at the net to be denied in the opener.

The second set was Newton’s most competitive on the night. The Cardinals scored first in each of the first two sets, and they led 3-0, 5-1 and 8-4 in the second frame.

Kills by Emmy Gross, Addie Ratcliff and Frehse and an ace from Isabelle Rawlins highlighted that run.

But Norwalk used a 5-0 run to take a 9-8 lead. Newton drew even with the Warriors (16-6, 2-1 in the conference) at 9, 10, 12, 13 and 14, but Norwalk took control of the set with a 4-0 run and never led by fewer than three the rest of the way.

The visiting Warriors led the third set 3-0 and then scored nine of the next 10 points to extend their advantage to 12-1.

The Cardinals (6-7, 0-3) got a combo block from Ratcliff and Frehse, a kill from Rawlins and rotation violation point from Norwalk that helped them close the gap to 14-6.

The deficit never got closer than that the rest of the way though as Norwalk scored 11 of the next 15 points to finish out the win.

“They’re a very good volleyball team with a lot of weapons and their best hitter is only a sophomore,” Woollums said. “You can tell they have players who play a lot of high-level volleyball.

“We just need to have confidence in our serves, our passes and with wanting to be the one who wants the pass. We’re right on the edge of clicking over and believing we can do it. Sometimes our confidence teeters back and forth.”

Rawlins finished with 15 assists, two kills and eight digs and Frehse totaled 10 kills and two digs to lead the Cardinals.

Camryn Klein put down three kills and tallied four digs, Merissa Schiebel contributed four digs, Olivia Bell collected three digs and Faith Roffey registered two digs.

Frehse leads the Cardinals with 114 kills and her kills per set improved to 3.7. Klein has a team-most 71 digs.

“Morgan’s a super hard worker and has wanted to play outside since her freshman year,” Woollums said. “She’s getting that opportunity as a junior and taking advantage of every chance she gets. She’s sat behind a few upperclassmen the past few seasons and now it’s her turn. She’s got power and has really developed into controlling that power this year.”

Newton was 35-of-39 with one ace, but Norwalk finished with 17 aces and posted a .333 kill efficiency.

Schiebel was 7-of-7 in serves, while Rawlins and Klein both were 6-of-6. Rawlins is 100-of-101 in serves this fall, and the Cardinals have a team serving percentage of 94.5.

Norwalk, which has four players listed at 6 foot or taller on its roster, got at least five kills from five different players.

“We told them they have to be ready for everything,” Woollums said. “They go to their outsides the most, but they can hit from anywhere. It’s about being court aware, getting to your defensive spot, getting your hands on as many balls as you can and when the ball is out, not playing it.

“We got some really good digs in the second set, but give them credit.”

Six-foot-1 Elle Hatlevig led the Warriors with eight kills and three aces. Her kill efficiency was .389, and she’s averaging four kills per set.

Ava Carlson produced seven kills, six digs and three aces, Reese Heim totaled 15 digs and Delaynee Steele served up six aces.

Notes: One of the Cardinals’ graduated losses last year was Chloe Swank, who started at libero for the past four seasons. After 13 matches this fall, Woollums said they’re still trying to figure out who gets to wear the different colored jersey. At least three different players have been in the libero role this season. Two players — Roffey in the opening game and Bell in the final two — wore the libero jersey on Tuesday. “If we had someone who took the position and ran with it, that would be ideal,” Woollums said. “We’ve had our ebbs and flows so far. We have a lot of seniors in the back row who are all pretty even. We’re putting someone in the libero shirt right now mostly because it doesn’t count as a sub to use the position. There isn’t anyone who’s consistently digging better than the others. We didn’t bring back a lot of varsity court experience. It’s a big jump, and we’re still learning how the puzzle pieces fit together.”