Appleton North boys volleyball outlasts Kimberly in WIAA sectional final, clinches spot in state tournament
By Dustin Riese
For AppletonSportsPage.com
APPLETON – Appleton North and Kimberly are two of the more successful high school boys volleyball programs in Wisconsin, with 12 combined state tournament appearances in the past two decades.
For the second year in a row, the two Fox Valley Association rivals met in a WIAA sectional final with a trip to state and the Resch Center in Green Bay on the line.
After sweeping the Lightning during the regular season, the Papermakers had all the confidence in the world to top the Lightning one more time, as they did in last year’s sectional final. However, this wasn’t the same Lightning team that played them the first time.
Appleton North survived a match point in a wild fifth and deciding set, and pulled out a 19-17 win to take the match 3-2 on Saturday night at Appleton North High School. North won the marathon match 25-19, 29-31, 26-24, 15-25, 19-17.
The Lightning will be making their ninth state tournament appearance since 2002. Seedings and matchups will be announced Sunday, with play beginning with quarterfinals on Wednesday at either 4:30 p.m. or 7 p.m.
The No. 3 seed Lightning has grown up in front of everyone’s eyes and after knocking off No. 2 Fond du Lac earlier in the week, Appleton North continued to embrace the underdog role and put together one of the best volleyball matches of the year.
Not only did this match go the distance, but three of the five sets went into overtime. Led by Nathan Ramus, the Lightning battled back from several deficits and held an 18-17 lead and with their season on the line, the Lightning responded as Owen Tierney came through with a massive block to end the game 19-17 and sent the Lightning to the state tournament.
“We just kept fighting tonight as a team,” North junior Nathan Ramus said. “There were several times where we fell behind tonight, but that never bothered us. We just kept fighting back and believing that we could win this match. We wanted to win this match so bad and none of us were going to quit until we won.”
Right from the start the match was a back-and-forth affair. With things tied 5-5 in the opening set, Ramus put the Lighting in front with a kill before Isaac Berken came away with several clutch points at the net to give North a 10-6 lead.
Led by Owen Krause, Kimberly managed to battle back to pull within 14-13 only to have the Lighting pull away to take set one 25-19.
Facing a rare 1-0 match deficit, Kimberly came out like a team on a mission to begin the second set as the size of Krause and Michael Janssen up front gave the Lightning fits and helped Kimberly race out to an early 8-2 lead. It was at that point when Ramus started to impose his will as his ability to convert from the service line and at the net sparked a run that pulled the Lighting to within 11-9.
As the second set rolled on, the size of the Papermakers continued to be an issue as Kimberly pushed its lead back up to 16-10 and were on the verge of breaking things open. Had this been earlier in the season, that may have happened, but this wasn’t the same North team that opened the season as head coach Mike Maass has seen this team mature, especially lately. North rallied to tie things up 24-24 before eventually falling 31-29.
“This group has grown up a lot throughout the year and it showed out there tonight,” Maass said. “Our entire coaching staff couldn’t be prouder for the amount of work these kids have put in this year. It’s fun seeing them believe in themselves and finding a way to win through adversity which is something we haven’t done much of until this past week.”
With things knotted up 1-1, the third set was crucial to the match as the winner would put themselves in the driver seat to take the match. What started off as a back-and-forth game with Howard Guilbeault erasing an early deficit with a kill, turned into another Kimbelry lead with Alex Krause coming away with the go-ahead kill. A pair of Nick Sroda blocks put Kimberly in front 15-10.
The Papermakers eventually extended their lead to 18-12, but with Ramus starting to take over again this match was far from over as North mounted a late rally. All it took was a kill from Ramus to tie things up at 24 before the Lighting closed out the set with two more points to take a 2-1 lead, winning 26-24. Maass knows Ramus means a lot to this team and they put a lot of pressure on him to succeed.
“We put a ton of expectations on Ramus and we ride him a ton every night,” he said. “When we got down the stretch, we started to set him the ball on every possession because he lives for those challenging moments. A lot of coaches will tell you that he is one of the best players in the state and tonight is a prime example of all of the things he can do for us when he is out there.”
Needing a win in the fourth set to save its season, Kimberly not only came out inspired, but this was the only set of the night where things were decided for most of the set. Even with both teams exchanging blows early on, with the Papermakers clinging to a 6-5 lead, it was the dominance of Janssen and Alex Krause up front as those started to impose their will to put Kimberly in front 17-12. Things only got worse from there for the Lightning as Janssen capped off the fourth set with an exclamation point and forced a winner take all fifth set with the 25-15 victory.
Knowing what was at stake, the sense of urgency was obvious from both sides as things remained close early. Kimberly won a lengthy volley off an unforced Appleton North error and took what could’ve been an 8-6 game and flipped it to a 9-5 Papermakers advantage that had North searching for answers.
Down 12-8, North had to rally quickly. Tierney started to get involved once again as he came away with a huge block to pull North within 12-9 while his tip kill made this a 12-10 game.
Throw in another kill from Guilbeault and North was once again battling back from an early deficit as they were within 13-12. Playing from behind against Kimberly is asking for trouble, but North is a team that doesn’t fear the Papermakers and Ramus came up with a massive kill things to knot the score at 14-14.
Facing a game point situation for what seemed like the 100th time of the night, the Lightning continued to stay alive as Berken came away with a massive block to tie things back up before Ramus put North in a game-point situation. Unfortunately for the Lightning, they were unable to finish it off and after a pair of points from Alex Krause, it was the Papermakers leading 17-16 and on the verge of closing out the match.
That would be the final point of the night for Kimberly as an unforced error led to the Lightning tying it. A Ramus kill gave North the lead and this time they were able to finish it as Tierney found an opening on the floor and delivered the biggest kill of the season to hand North a 19-17 fifth-set win and a 3-2 match win to clinch a trip to the state tournament. After falling to Kimberly countless times in the past, Ramus was more than excited to finally put the Papermakers to rest in a game of this magnitude.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “This is the best feeling ever to finally beat them, and to beat them the way we did at home. I’m at a loss for words right now.”
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