Volleyball: Surges send Duchesses past Cogs in BNC clash

DIXON – Welcoming a familiar face back to Lancaster Gym on Thursday night, Dixon spoiled that homecoming with a 25-22, 25-18 win over Genoa-Kingston.

First-year Cogs head coach Taylor Spellman is a 2020 DHS graduate, and had about 30 friends and family in attendance to support her. But the Duchesses used an early surge in the first set and a late spurt in the second set to notch the victory.

“It’s so crazy, it’s fun and surreal. I was excited to get back on the court,” Spellman said. “I think I had close to 30 people here tonight, which is really exciting. It was a lot of family friends that came today: aunts, uncles were here, grandmas were here, all the kids were here. It was great, it was exciting, and they all support me so much.”

[ Photos from Dixon vs. Genoa-Kingston volleyball ]

Dixon (16-11, 6-2 Big Northern Conference) used an 8-2 run in the opening set to turn a 6-6 tie into a 14-8 lead. Mady Tichler had two kills and a block in that stretch, Makenzie Toms added a spike, and Leah Carlson served an ace.

A free-ball kill by Toms sparked another spurt a few points later. Solis Thompson stuffed a block, Tichler and Izzy Queckboerner added kills, and Thompson’s ace made it 22-14 Duchesses.

“I feel like we got in a really good groove right from the beginning. We did get down a little bit, but we came back and fought and won it,” Tichler said. “We were talking a lot, and we were running different plays that some people aren’t used to, really just making the middle hold so the outside and right side basically only had one blocker.”

G-K (17-13, 5-3 BNC) got three kills in a four-point span from freshman Jessie Fredrickson to cut the deficit to 23-20, then a tip-kill by Addison Vicary made it 24-22 before a Cogs violation ended the set.

The second set was a back-and-forth affair early on. Dixon led 6-2 after two tip-kills by Tichler and a block by Queckboerner, then Fredrickson tipped her second kill of the set before serving back-to-back points to make it 6-5.

A Toms tip-kill pushed the Dixon lead back to 7-5, but Mia Wise tooled the block and Keiragan Gleissner put down an overpass to tie the score. The Cogs then got a kill from Presley Meyer and a dump-kill from Wise – her third of the match – to stretch their lead to 12-10.

That’s when the Duchesses found their rhythm again. Tichler stuffed a block and Morgan Hargrave served consecutive aces to make it 14-12 Dixon, then Tichler had three kills in a five-point span before Queckborner’s spike pushed the margin to 20-16. Carlson had three kills of her own in the final five-point stretch to finish it off.

“I think that our lead really came from the fact that we really serve-received very well,” senior defensive specialist Emma Olson said. “And we didn’t let them go on many runs. As soon as they got a point back, we would return and come back even stronger.”

“I feel like we did really well with our scrambling tonight,” Tichler added. “There were a few times we didn’t save it, but that always happens; you can’t get to every single ball. We just played aggressive tonight.”

Defense made the difference on Dixon’s side of the court, as the Duchesses had several players step up in the back row while also getting a consistent block up at the net.

“It’s definitely a team effort. As soon as somebody rotates out of left back, we have someone else there to step in and go right into the back row and be ready to go. We all fill each others’ shoes, and we all work together,” said Olson, one of seven different Duchesses with multiple digs in the match. “We’ve been working a lot on defense at practices, front row and back row. As a DS, defense is harder than it looks; you might get hit in the face, you don’t always know where it’s going. But [head coach] Bunyan [Cocar] has been a great help working on our defense, and we’ve gotten a lot better at it.”

Carlson stuffed the stat sheet with 12 digs, eight assists, four kills, nine points and three aces, Tichler finished with a match-high 10 kills and a block, and Hargrave had a team-high 13 digs to go with three kills, two assists, six points and two aces. Presley Lappin added nine assists, eight digs and five points, Toms finished with three kills and two blocks, Queckboerner added two kills and three blocks, and libero Yui Santos chipped in 11 digs for the Duchesses.

Fredrickson and Wise led the Cogs with seven kills, and Wise added a team-high 12 digs to go with four assists. Meyer had nine assists, four points and two aces, and Addy Langton added six digs and three points.

“We have good days and bad days, but I’m proud of the kids,” Spellman said. “We have a young team, and we came off of a very, very exciting game on Tuesday, but we have to come in with the mindset that not every single game has the same type of style of player, and we’ve just got to learn to adjust. I tell them you either win or you learn, and we did a lot of learning tonight.

“We’re coming off of some injuries too, so we’re learning to play together again, and that’s OK. We just need to have more confidence in ourselves and our teammates, and our energy needs to be a tad bit higher. I’m a firm believer that energy and communication are what’s going to win you a volleyball game, a when energy and communication are there, the fundamentals come with it. I think our future looks pretty bright.”