The Teutopolis Lady Shoes saw their regular volleyball season come to a close Thursday night with a three-set loss at Centralia.
The Lady Orphans prevailed 25-15, 22-25, 25-12.
“We got swept tonight for the first time this season,” said THS coach Tim Mills, noting the THS junior varsity and freshman squads were also defeated. “Most of the sets weren’t close. I’m not sure if it was the long bus ride or the fact that it was the last match of the season for the freshmen and JV teams, but we didn’t play well.
“The varsity got smoked pretty good in the first set,” Mills added. “Centralia is a very good team and they got up on us fast in Set 1 and we never recovered. Set 2 was all us. We got up early, and although they made a late push to make the score close, we dominated the second set.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t repeat it for Set 3. Like they did in Set 1, Centralia got up on us early and we couldn’t recover. After we got behind, we panicked and then we pressed. That, of course, led to mistakes and Centralia seemed to take advantage of every mistake we made.”
For the Lady Shoes, Kelsey Deters had 1 dig, 39 sets, 16 assists; Hannah Rodgers 5 sets, 3 assists; Holly Heuerman 4 digs, 3 hits, 1 point, 1 set; Emily Konkel 3 blocks, 2 hits, 1 ace, 6 points; Carly Michels 2 blocks, 4 digs, 11 kills, 22 hits, 3 points; Erica Michels 1 block, 1 dig, 23 hits, 13 kills, 1 ace, 1 point; Lexie Niebrugge 5 digs, 2 hits, 1 ace, 7 points; Ciara Roepke 1 block, 5 digs, 13 hits, 6 kills, 1 ace, 3 points, 3 sets, 1 assist; and Kaitlyn Schumacher 1 block, 1 hit, 5 sets.
Centralia took the JV game by scores of 25-14, 26-24; and the freshman contest by scores of 25-20, 25-12.
THS dropped to 18-16 on the season.
Teutopolis will host a Class 2A Regional and will open postseason play Monday. The Lady Shoes will face Sullivan at 5:30 p.m. The winner of that match will then play No. 2 seed Paris at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. The regional championship is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday.
Coach Mills is optimistic about his team’s chances.
“On the bright side, we’re getting healthy in time for the regional tournament,” he noted. “So I like our chances next week.”