State bound: Maize South volleyball punches ticket to state after neck-and-neck battle with Kapaun

When Maize South’s head volleyball coach Teri Larson came out of retirement to coach the Mavericks again, she came back to a team with a losing record.

Two years out of retirement, she’s state bound with her team.

Maize South outlasted Kapaun on Saturday 23-25, 25-21, 26-24 for a Class 5A sub-state championship at Maize South.

“These seniors played as freshmen and sophomores and they’d win four or five matches in a season … they didn’t have a lot of success,” Larson said. “I have seven seniors. They’ve wanted this, this has been their dream, so I’m just glad they got it.”

Senior Phoenix Quandt has seen the transition of the team go from barely winning any games to being sub-state champions.

It wasn’t talent, or lack thereof, that made the difference. It was the team’s ability to play as a unit.

“We have never come this far, it’s the most amazing feeling,” Quandt said. “We didn’t have chemistry and we didn’t know how to play together, and what our roles were. That really developed over the past year.”

The Mavericks’ road to the substate championship didn’t come easily — they had to face a team that has beaten them before this season.

Maize South lost the Maize Invitational championship game to the Kapaun Crusaders. Maize South didn’t want to lose another championship game to Kapaun, so they came into the sub-state championship with a chip on their shoulders.

Larson credits the Mavericks’ loss to the Crusaders earlier in the season as the reason she changed up her team’s defense in the first place.

“We changed our defense because of that match, so it really helped us in the long run,” Larson said. “We didn’t care who we played (in sub-state), but that just made it sweeter.”

Kapaun won the first set of the match on Saturday 25-23 and gained a lead heading into the second set. Larson realized that the nerves were getting the best of her team, so she made it a point to try to calm their nerves so unforced errors didn’t happen.

Larson took a timeout early into the second set, which she believes was the thing that turned the match around for the Mavericks.

“I told them ‘You have nothing to lose, just get out there and get your mojo back, start talking play the defense we know we can play,’” Larson said. “Then they just picked it up, and I think that was the turning point.”

Maize South won the second set 25-21, forcing the match to head into a do-or-die third set.

The third set was neck-and-neck the entire time. At any given point either the Crusaders or the Mavericks could have walked away with the title.

In those moments, keeping their composure was the biggest thing for the Mavericks.

“You just have to stay calm, you can’t get too energetic or too upset,” Quandt said. “That’s when you make the unforced errors and those unforced errors will kill you.”

Maize South managed to keep their emotions low and their focus high on the court. They pulled away with the 26-24 win of the third set, winning the match 2-1 to become sub-state champions.

“We’ve waited four years for this,” senior Corinn Sokoll said. “I’m just so excited to be state bound with my friends and my seniors.”

Sokoll said that winning with the high stakes of playing against a team they’ve recently lost to helps their momentum moving on to state.

“We knew that we lost to Kapaun once, and we beat them when it counted,” Sokoll said. “So we know going into state we can take on anyone.”

This story was originally published October 20, 2018 at 7:33 PM with the headline "State bound: Maize South volleyball punches ticket to state after neck-and-neck battle with Kapaun."