Seneca to State
Liv Swanson spikes the ball against Benton Thursday night. (Photos by Sandy Connors)
Michelle Clark denies the Bangor spike Saturday.
The Seneca volleyball team poses with the Sectional Trophy.
Members of the Seneca High School volleyball team jump for joy as coach Dawn Ray hoists the Sectional Championship trophy high.
Seneca volleyball team
heads to State Tournament
By Ted Pennekamp
From the very beginning this season, the stated goal of the Seneca High School volleyball team was to go well beyond winning the conference title and go as far as they could possibly go. The team has certainly achieved that and is heading to the State Volleyball Tournament at the Resch Center in Green Bay beginning Nov. 4.
“We’ve met one of our biggest goals,” said Seneca Coach Dawn Ray. “We’ll now be playing on the big stage for the community and all of the little girls who want to become Seneca volleyball players someday.”
Top-seeded Seneca achieved their state dream be beating number one seeded Benton 23-25, 25-14, 25-15 and 25-17 on Thursday night Oct. 27 in the Division 4 Sectional semifinal in Belmont; and then defeating top-seeded Bangor 25-27, 25-22, 25-20 and 25-17 in the Sectional final at Richland Center.
“It’s been an amazing ride,” said Ray. “We knew it was a possibility to go beyond and go to state. We just needed to get the girls to believe what they had to do.”
Ray said that the team began to realize the possibilities towards the end of the regular season and came together even more as a team to help propel them going into the playoffs.
“They evolved and jelled,” said Ray. “The Benton game was an amazing game for the girls. Then, we started off a bit scared against Bangor. But, after they got game two under their belts, my team came back. We are loud when we celebrate getting a point and are very enthusiastic. I think it intimidated Bangor. The Bangor fans were shocked when they lost.”
Ray said that six members of the team were managers for Seneca when they were young so they’ve seen the success of the program throughout the years.
“They used to say, ‘We’re gonna play there someday’ about playing at state,” Ray said.
Ray said that the girls started setting individual goals for themselves, such as number of kills, in each match and began pushing themselves to get better. She said that by achieving their individual goals each match they began to play better as a team.
“They started to get individual goals and kept on pushing themselves for more,” said Ray. “They realized what the possibility was and came together as a team. We won as a team.”
The Seneca team will face a tough test in their upcoming match against the top rated team in the state Newman Catholic in the Division 4 semifinal on Friday, Nov. 4 at the Resch Center in Green Bay beginning at 10 a.m. The championship match is scheduled for Nov. 5 at 9 a.m.
All Seneca fans are now looking forward to seeing how far “beyond” will be. No matter what happens, as Coach Dawn Ray said, “It’s been an amazing ride.”
