Norris and Elkhorn North squared off for the second time in four days — and third overall — on Tuesday in a regular season rubber match.
The Titans’ trip to Elkhorn featured an auspicious start as the team bus got into an accident on the way to the matches. Fortunately, no one got hurt, but it delayed the team’s arrival by an hour and forced some schedule adjustments.
The night turned around once the Titans got on the court, however, as Class B No. 3 Norris swept No. 2 Elkhorn North 25-22, 25-23, 25-19, spoiling the Wolves’ senior night.
“They’re such a good team,” Norris coach Christina Boesiger said. “We beat them at Pius, they beat us last weekend, and so they were pretty motivated … It was great to come up here. It’s not an easy place to play, but to come in with a sweep, we were kind of expecting it to be a five-setter, a long night, but I think they really executed the game plan. We were really disciplined.”
Norris beat Elkhorn North 18-25, 27-25, 25-23 in the Lincoln Pius X tournament on Sept. 23. The Wolves returned the favor with a sweep (26-24, 25-17) in the final of the EMC Tournament on Saturday. A few days later, the teams faced off in their scheduled regular season matchup.
“You never really like playing the same team twice,” Boesiger said. “The scouting was easy. It was fresh in our mind when we watched film yesterday in practice. Each girl had a few things, goals they wanted to work on to make better from Saturday, but they were just really dialed in.”
After hitting .103 against the Wolves on Saturday, Norris executed offensively at a much better level on Tuesday, hitting .271. Freshman setter Malorie Boesiger dished out 46 assists with three hitters cracking double-digit kills.
“We had less errors on our side,” Coach Boesiger said. “Taking care of the ball and just more so winning the pass game a little bit. We were in system quite a bit where Mal, I felt like, could have quite a few options, and Saturday we weren’t able to run as many hitters. Yesterday in practice, it was like you guys have all got to score. And so we’ve worked a lot on high hands and tooling the block because they’re a big block and I think Saturday, we struggled with that a little bit.”
Norris junior Anna Jelinek takes a swing over the Elkhorn North block. Photo by Alex Van Gerpen.
Junior Anna Jelinek, a Long Beach State commit, led the way with 21 kills on .259 hitting and 21 digs. She recently surpassed 1,000 career digs.
Junior Zoe Rademacher finished with 14 kills on .333 hitting fellow junior Lexi Hasselbalch added 10 kills on .450 hitting.
Norris got off to a great start, jumping out to a 9-5 lead in the first set. The Wolves rallied to tie it up at 13-13, but the Titans responded with a 10-5 run to create separation again, and he hole proved too deep for the Wolves to climb out of.
The second set went back and forth with at least six ties and four lead changes. Norris used a 4-0 run midway through the set to take control then fended off a late comeback by the Wolves to take a 2-0 lead.
“They were in system every pass,” Elkhorn North coach Jenny Gragert said. “We could not get them out of system. They were passing lights out and running a very fast tempo and I thought our block did a good job of getting our hands on some balls, but we just have to take more responsibility for our serving game.”
Elkhorn North used its big block to fuel a 6-1 start to the third set, and it looked like the Wolves were ready to make it a long night. However, Norris settled back in and tied it up a couple of times before taking the lead at 14-13. After trading punches for a bit, the Wolves delivered the knockout blow with a 5-1 run, building a 21-16 cushion and crushing to the finish from there.
“That wasn’t a great start,” Coach Boesiger said. “I think they just gradually chipped away. They just had that fire in them tonight where I wasn’t too concerned that early in the game, just knowing they were still pretty focused and they weren’t really rattled. We just didn’t have a great start. But they’ve done that throughout the season, making some really good comebacks. It was just trust your training and go get it. We knew winning the third was going to be a lot easier than winning four and five.”
Freshman middle blocker continued her impressive season with 14 kills on .565 hitting and four blocks. Senior Ava Spies chipped in 10 kills while senior setter Reese Booth did a bit of everything with 33 assists, eight digs, six blocks, two kills and an ace.
The loss dropped the Wolves to 23-4, with half their losses coming to the Titans. However, the road doesn’t get any easier as they will play in a tournament on Friday including four Class A teams in Lincoln Southwest, Lincoln East, Omaha Westside and Millard North.
“I’m not afraid to lose,” Gragert said. “In fact, losing to teams like Norris is going to just help us in the long run. We’ve got to learn, we’ve got to get better and I told the girls that — this loss doesn’t mean anything; in fact, it’s going to help us in the long run. Norris is going to contend for a state championship, that’s just the type of team they are. But I think we’re right there with them.”
As for the Titans, Malorie Boesiger has stepped in as a freshman and guided the Titans to a 26-3 record while averaging 11.5 assists per game. As a coach’s kid, she trained all her life for the role she has now.
”She’s loved every minute of it,” said Christina Boesiger, her coach and her mom. “She’s played club a couple of years up, so I think she’s kind of played at this level. She’s been waiting forever. She’s been on the sideline for 14, 15 years, being a little ball girl and student manager and so she’s been waiting for this opportunity and she’s just kind of thrived, jumped in and she loves it.”
In addition to her mom, Malorie has had another mentor to learn the finer points of setting from in her older sister Maisie, a freshman walk-on for the second-ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers and Norris’ career assists and aces leader.
“Big sis, she’s watched her forever, play and train, and she’s always just jumped in right with her at a young age,” Coach Boesiger said. “Even though they’re five years apart, they’ll train together and so it’s been a good situation.”
The win on Tuesday was Norris’ 19th away from home as the Titans have only played three regular matches and one tournament on their home court. They’ll close out the regular season away from home as well, including a trip to Class C2 No. 1 Lincoln Lutheran (26-1) next Tuesday.
“Playing this level of volleyball is great,” Coach Boesiger said. “That’s what it’s going to take at the end of the season. Even just our conference on Saturday is kind of a mini-state tournament really with everybody there. Our win against Bennington I think was a great win for us; we swept them in two. We want to be playing the best teams right now.”
