CORALVILLE — It’s hard enough to try and stop Molly Shafer.
Trying to stop both Molly and Kate Shafer at the net, as well as Lacey Taylor, proved to be an obstacle that eighth-ranked Iowa City Regina just could not overcome on Tuesday.
The Shafer sisters combined for 29 of second-ranked Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont’s 46 kills against the Regals at the Iowa High School State Volleyball Tournament. Lacey Taylor connected on a career-high 16 kills, including eight coming in the third and final set as EBF overcame a slow start to earn a 25-23, 25-13, 25-19 win at Xtream Arena, advancing to the Class 2A state volleyball semifinals for just the third time in program history scoring a second win this season over Regina after edging the Regals in a three-set match at the West Branch Tournament back on Aug. 29.
“This match actually reminded me a little bit of that earlier match we played against each other. We did not start off strong in that match and just kind of kept playing point for point. We lost the first set against Regina in that earlier match and came back, served better and passed the ball better. That’s what we have to keep doing in order to control a match.”
EBF appeared on the verge of losing the first set on Tuesday in the rematch with the Regals. Five Rocket hitting errors helped Regina jump out to a 14-8 lead as EBF appeared to be battling through some early-match nerves, much as they did in last Wednesday’s four-set regional championship win over Tri-Center.
“We’re not used to playing in front of a crowd this big,” Taylor said. “It’s state. It’s huge. It took some time to get used to the setting we were in.”
Kate Shafer, who surpasses 3,100 career assists on Tuesday with a match-leading 32 against the Regals, began to shift the momentum back in favor of the Rockets by setting balls over the net to catch Regina’s defense off balance. As a result, Kate Shafer finished with eight kills of her own, going 13 of 14 in attacking as EBF climbed back into the set catching the Regals at 19-19.
“Being aggressive helps pull the block away from Molly,” Kate Shafer said. “If the other team is thinking they have block me first, it puts that extra thought that might distract them from defending Molly.”
Molly Shafer would make her presence felt in the opening game, scoring on nine of her match-leading 21 kills during the back-and-forth battle with the Regals. The future Northern Iowa Panther went swing for swing with Regina junior Reese Naeve as the future Iowa State Cyclone scored on 10 kills in the opening game.
“I’ve actually played with Reese before. I know her pretty well,” Molly Shafer said. “I knew it was going to be a battle between us. That made it a lot of fun.”
Naeve edged Regina in front with kills to snap 20-20 and 21-21 ties. Molly Shafer countered by scoring on consecutive kills to put EBF ahead for good at 23-22 before adding a block to set up a pair of set points for the Rockets with the ninth kill of the match by Rockets’ elite all-state senior hitter clinching a hard-fought opening-set win with the best volleyball of the match still to come for EBF.
“Once we got to that second set, having pulled out the first set, we felt a lot more confident that we had this,” Genskow said. “We knew we had a lot of room to improve, but we were still able to pull out a win not playing our best volleyball. Lacey really came around and one of her best games, which gave us a depth at the net I’m not sure that Regina had.”
Naeve finished scoring on 20 of Iowa City Regina’s 30 kills in the match. The Rockets, after committing eight errors in their attack during the opening set, committed just six in the final two sets jumping out to a 9-4 lead on the way to winning the second set easily before overcoming an early 5-2 deficit in the third set pulling ahead for good on a pair of kills by Taylor and a block by Lanie Batterson.
“There was definitely a lot of energy we were playing with by the time we got to the third set. We were playing with a lot of momentum,” Taylor said. “We just gave it all we had. We wanted to put the match away and move on to the next round.”
Iowa City Regina ends the season with a record of 25-14. EBF, now 35-2 on the season, will take on third-ranked Beckman Catholic (36-6) in the Class 2A state semifinals on Wednesday afternoon.
“We’ve learned over the past two years going up against teams like Western Christian and Dike-New Hartford how much we needed to improve on,” Kate Shafer said. “There’s not a real powerhouse in the field this year. It’s right there for us.”
“We didn’t have out best start, but we got our momentum going. We’ve just got to keep up that momentum,” Molly Shafer added.
