Revenge of the Rebels: G-R drops North Tama in straight sets to advance to regional final

By: 
Robert Maharry

All the Gladbrook-Reinbeck volleyball team had to do to keep its state tournament hopes alive was defeat a North Tama squad that had already bested the Rebels three times this season on the Redhawks’ home court in Traer. Piece of cake, right?
           
Against that backdrop, the 11th ranked Rebels didn’t just win. They did it in straight sets.
           
“They wanted this that bad. I don’t think there was any stopping us… The girls earned it,” head coach Paula Kelley said. “At this point, it’s all emotion.”
           
G-R (27-9) won 25-18, 25-17, 25-23 amidst a capacity crowd with plenty of fans in both red and blue (the two high schools are just 16 miles apart), and the Rebels advanced to take on Ar-We-Va on Tuesday night in Boone with a trip to Cedar Rapids on the line.
           
“Our program is ready to take that next big step, and this was going to have to be that step,” Kelley said.
           
In the early going, the two teams traded points, but the Rebels gained momentum with a few Saari Kuehl, Haleigh Berendes and Meriah Wittgreve kills and a Rachel Cooley ace, pushing the score to 17-11. The sixth-ranked Redhawks (26-8) could never quite recover and didn’t get closer than three points for the set. Kuehl, as she’s known to do, finished the set with an emphatic spike and put a jolt in her teammates that was contagious all night.
           
“We found lots of holes really early and really got in their heads too,” Kelley said.
           
The second set largely followed the same trajectory as G-R built an 11-7 cushion and relied on their star hitters to come up big in crucial moments. The Rebels took a 20-12 lead after back-to-back spikes from Kuehl and Wittgreve, and Berendes finished it off with a soft shot that landed just inside the line and put the underdogs fully in the driver’s seat. 
 
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