File photo by Ari Selvey
Nicollet’s Cason Forbrook (15) tips the ball over the net during a Tomahawk-Valley Conference crossover volleyball match on Oct. 11 against Cedar Mountain at Cedar Mountain High School.

MADELIA — It wasn’t exactly déjà vu on Thursday night at Madelia High School, but the No. 14-seeded Madelia Blackhawks were more than happy to see a similar result.

After defeating the Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop Thunderbirds in four sets Monday in Madelia, the Blackhawks welcomed the Thunderbirds back Thursday for a Section 2A Volleyball Tournament first-round matchup and won 22-25, 25-16, 25-7, 25-20.

Ashlynn Sweet did a little bit of everything for the Blackhawks in the win with 15 kills, 13 digs, four blocks, three aces and two set assists. She was also 16 for 16 on her serves.

Sweet admitted that after Monday’s win, she and the Blackhawks may have came in a bit too relaxed to Thursday’s playoff matchup and let the first set get away because of it.

“We came in thinking we were going to win and when we realized that they came in trying their hardest that we had to try our hardest,” Sweet said.

And while the Blackhawks had that Monday win in their back pocket heading into the home playoff match, the No. 19-seeded Thunderbirds arguably benefited from that first meeting more and showed that with a win in the first set Thursday.

“I think we definitely took it to our advantage,” GFW head coach Imia Mages said. “We changed a few things up so we could be more aggressive against them, we watched our video on the mistakes we made so that we could be more confident and send less free balls over and be a more aggressive swinging team.”

Madelia head coach Melodie DeVlaeminck said neither team was familiar with each other prior to Monday’s regular season matchup. She said Monday’s win was good for her team’s confidence, but she knew GFW was going to come ready to play Thursday.

“We prepared because we’ve never played them before, this is our first season playing them,” coach DeVlaeminck said. “So seeing kind of how they were and we knew that we had the chance to play them tonight, so we kind of scouted them a little bit and knew what they could do. So it’s a little both in making sure we took that win on Monday, we really need to come in today to take the win because they’re going to want it more.”

After a block by Katherine DeVlaeminck made it 11-6 in the opening set, Mages took a timeout to help reenergize her team. It took a little while to get a run going, but the Thunderbirds got one late, a 7-0 run to lead 23-21. Freshman Kora Schwarzrock got the tie-breaking kill to hype up her teammates and put the Thunderbirds up 22-21. Moments later, Schwarzrock came through again with a set-ending kill.

Despite carrying that energy into the second set and starting with a 3-0 lead after Chloe Henrichs got a kill and back-to-back ace serves. That energy shifted sides of the court moments later, however, as the Blackhawks put together a 12-0 run that even a timeout couldn’t stop to lead 13-4. Sweet had two blocks and a kill during the run, while Henrichs had two more ace serves.

After trailing by as much as 12, 19-7, GFW cut the deficit to 24-16 on a kill from Ella Nachreiner. A big spike by Sweet then ended the set.

“Definitely that comfortability, we kind of sometimes sink in and think we can play safe and then we make a couple mistakes and we just can’t let them go,” coach DeVlaeminck said. “And that’s kind of what we saw in that first set is making our own mistakes and not pulling back from it, so just kind of giving it to them. [GFW] worked for it, but I think we also gave it to them in that first set.”

The third set was all Blackhawks as a kill and ace by Sweet put them up 12-2 early on. Madelia ended the set on an 8-1 run and a kill by Sweet.

Set 4 was back and forth until GFW got a 5-0 run to lead 16-9 and force a Madelia timeout. Madelia got a 4-0 run out of the timeout to force GFW to burn one of its own. Madelia eventually took the lead back after an attack error and ended the set with a 6-0 run, getting a kill from Katherine DeVlaeminck to finish the night.

GFW was led by Nachreiner’s nine kills and Trinity Stearns’ seven kills, while Natalie Ahlbrecht had 17 assists and two blocks, Henrichs had four aces and Cheyenne Schmidt had six digs and two aces. Madi Lee added six digs also for the Thunderbirds.

Makayla Sorenson finished with eight kills and 10 digs for Madelia, while Grev had five kills, five aces and 11 digs and Katherine DeVlaeminck had three kills and two blocks. Alicia Lugo had 17 set assists and two aces, while Katie s had 10 set assists and seven digs and Payton Bruns had 13 digs.

Madelia, now 13-14-1, will travel to third-seeded Cleveland for a playoff match Monday. The Blackhawks, who started the first five matches of the season 1-4, are now on a three-match win streak.

“The beginning of the season was a bit rough, but now that we’re working together and we’ve worked for a while, now it’s getting better,” Sweet said.

Despite a tough season that saw GFW finish 1-22, Mages said the season wasn’t an unfulfilling one.

“Given our record, it could have been a really unfulfilling season, but I’m very proud of these girls, it was a very fulfilling season,” Mages said. “My seniors led, they created a culture of support and they accepted this young roster that we had put together and they led with confidence and I’m looking forward to what they’ve created and us to just continue to grow and move.”