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By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
AUBURNDALE – Between Sept. 14 and Oct. 10, the Auburndale volleyball team lost matches to Spencer, Wausau Newman Catholic, Marathon and Athens, knocking the Apaches out of contention for the Marawood Conference title and shaking their confidence.
Turn to the postseason, which started Oct. 22, and Auburndale has been unbeatable.
The Apaches pulled out three straight five-set matches and defeated four higher-seeded teams to reach the WIAA State Girls Volleyball Tournament for the third time in the last five years.
Auburndale will take on Racine St. Catherine’s in a Division 3 state semifinal at 1 p.m. Friday at the Resch Center in Green Bay. Eau Claire Regis plays Brodhead at the same time and the winners will play in the Division 3 championship game Saturday at 11:30 a.m.
The difference, senior backcourt specialist Chelsea Clark said, was the team’s ability to gel at the right time.
“In the postseason, we were clicking and had a rhythm,” Clark said. “We decided that we weren’t going to give up, we were going to keep pushing and we were going to give it our all every single time. During the season, I don’t think we developed our rhythm yet as a team and we weren’t working together every single play like we are now.”
Coach Peggy Empey, who also coached the Apaches to the state tournament in 2009 and 2010, said her team learned valuable lessons during that tough stretch of the regular season.
“I think the difference was the girls truly believed that they could do it and used that belief to push through every play, one play at a time,” Empey said. “It was amazing to see the girls play with that kind of passion on the court and never give up. They learned from every loss.”
Seeded fifth in the regional, Auburndale knew it would have a tough road to the state tournament. The Apaches went on to upset No. 4 Spencer and No. 1 Athens on the road, then beat No. 3 Stanley-Boyd in a sectional semifinal at Abbotsford, before wrapping up the state berth with a win against another No. 1 seed, Oshkosh Lourdes, on its home court last Saturday.
“I think it took a while to hit us,” Empey said. “We had this excitement, but it was a surreal feeling that we were actually going to state. We knew the whole time that every night we played, we knew it was possible and we kept going one match at a time.”
The Apaches lost in the semifinals both of their previous trips to state, including a match to St. Catherine’s in 2010.
Those trips to the state tournament, the first two in the program’s history, were valuable in creating a winning culture at Auburndale. This year’s group of five seniors – Clark, Kelly Brokish, Camille Swart, Kendra Kundinger and Heidi Gehrke – were freshmen when they took the trip to watch the team in 2010.
“As a freshman when I got to go there and watch them play, and as an eighth-grader, it really made you want to go there yourself and be a player on the court,” Clark said. “All through high school you push really hard so that your team can be great and they get down there.”
All of the state tournament games will be streamed live online at foxsportswisconsin.com. The four championship games will be televised live on Fox Sports Wisconsin (Charter Cable channel 38 and HD channel 663) on Saturday starting at 9 a.m. with the Division 4 match.