D3 state preview
Posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 3:00 pmWe’re only a few days away from the beginning of the volleyball state tournament in Green Bay.
The four teams in the field are:
Grantsburg Pirates (34-1, winners of the West Lakeland) Laconia Spartans (30-11, third place Wisconsin Flyway) Cuba City Cubans (34-3, winners of the SW Wisconsin Activities League) Auburndale Apaches (42-7, Winners of the Mirawood South Conference)For a quick preview of all these teams, here is what the WIAA released.
Quick takes:
Kortney Morrin and Anne Palmquist are studs. Both of them have over 300 kills (the next closest is 290 [for D3 state qualifiers] and it drops quickly from there).
Kortney hits at a .403 rate and Anne hits at a whopping .474 rate. (Kallie Thoreson is hitting at a .425 rate, with about one fourth the attempts as the other two.)
By comparison the best kill percentage by any other girl in division 3 is .390 by a gal from Cuba City (Katie Langmeier, 180 kills). After that it goes down to .356 by another gal from Cuba City.
The Pirates, as a team are averaging 11.81 kills per game. The next closest is Cuba City with 10.3.
Auburndale has 21 more total kills than Grantsburg (1084-1063), but the Apaches have played 22 more sets than have the Pirates.
Grantsburg has 396 aces. The next closest is 370 by Auburndale. After that Cuba City has 247 and Laconia has only 175.
Grantsburg has the fewest sets played in the Division 3 realm with 90. The most is by Auburndale (112).
Players to watch:
Laconia: The whole team. It doesn’t look like (statistically) anyone stands out over the others, but it does look like they play a lot of girls. According to the stats I’ve received they have ten girls who have played every set this year. That’s pretty impressive. They have two setters and three girls with over 600 attacks. (Kortney Morrin is the only Pirate to have over 600 attacks) So it looks like they spread it around and you can’t key on one person.
Cuba City: They have a pair of good hitters in seniors Katie Langmeier and Emily Kaiser. Both average over 2.3 kills per game.
Auburndale: Kayleigh Kundinger is their junior setter and has more assists than Cuba City has as a team! I’m anticipating watching some pretty good offense from her as it looks like she’s not afraid to go over in two either. She has 57 kills on the season.