RIVER FALLS — River Falls took home the Menomonie Sprawl title in a tournament with 40 local teams this past weekend. It was the sixth time in eight years that the Wildcats took home the title, toppling three consecutive Big Rivers Conference teams in the process to move to 11-0 on the year.

Ellsworth and Elmwood/Plum City were also both at the event, getting wins and finding improvement.

“We have more depth than we’ve had in the last couple years,” River Falls Head Coach Sara Kealy said. “We’ve been really good as a program in general in the last decade of making sure that there’s young players trained and ready to fill gaps for us. This season in particular, I feel like within each position we have multiple players that can contribute.”

Because of the depth, Kealy said they have put together a ton of great practices, getting ahead of other teams developmentally early.

River Falls went three sets with Lakeland in the opening match, which Kealy attributed to trying out multiple lineups.

“Day one, the Sprawl competition is typically a little bit lighter. I could go into that tournament and I could play my top lineup and we could, on day one, have very lopsided matchups which would give us a higher seed,” Kealy said. “I just don’t think that’s the right way to handle it. It’s early in the season and I need to play as many people as I can.”

River Falls was testing lineups but also testing players and gauging their ability to handle adversity. The rest of the opening day was smooth sailing for River Falls, beating River Valley, Unity and New Auburn in 2-0 fashion.

In the 16-team championship bracket, River Falls took care of business against conference foes Eau Claire Memorial, Hudson and Chippewa Falls to advance to the finals against a Stanley-Boyd team that had just played a thriller, running them out of gas for the finals (RF won 25-13, 25-11).

“I felt like I was in a BRC conference tournament,” Kealy joked.

The Hudson match stood out to Kealy most. Hudson got the best of River Falls at the Sprawl, in conference play and in the postseason a year ago.

“The Hudson match was one we really needed at this point in the season because we had lost to them in the Section Finals last year,” Kealy said. “From an emotional standpoint, you know the River Falls-Hudson rivalry, of course, but I think that was one, once we kind of stabilized and had control of that match, I thought this will be a boost for my kids.”

Through four-year varsity player and UW-Milwaukee commit libero Olivia Doerre and some experienced outside hitters, Kealy has enjoyed the veteran presence.

“Olivia Doerre is my only four-year varsity player,” Kealy said. “She just kind of stabilizes our back court.”

Moving forward, Kealy said all they need to do is find the consistency to perform to their peak.

Ellsworth

Ellsworth finished 32nd at the event. After losing a list of seniors a year ago, the Panthers are using tournaments like this one to find a unit that clicks.

“Definitely a learning experience for us. I would say really just finding our footing trying to figure out which six are going to work best together,” Head Coach Emily Fedie said.

Fedie saw versatility and leadership, and now it’s about putting it together with the skills they are developing. Going against a range of school sizes, tournaments like this can be perfect to see what works against multiple levels of teams.

“It gives us a lot of opportunity to try different things and really step up when we need to, especially against some of those bigger schools,” Fedie said, “I think it’s really great to play smaller schools as well, that we typically don’t play, because it really just allows us to prepare for our conference play.”

Fedie said it is fun to watch her players try to hit it around sizable blockers from large schools for the first time.

“The more time that the girls play together, the better it will be,” Fedie said. “Being that this is a fairly new team, losing a lot of seniors last year, it’s going to take a little bit of time to build that trust and rapport.”

Ellsworth picked up one win at the event, taking down Clayton 25-22, 25-19. They took losses to Chippewa Falls, St. Croix Falls, Elk Mound, Eau Claire North, Turtle Lake and Spooner.

EPC

EPC had two matches go to three sets during pool play against Spooner and Clear Lake, but could not come away with a win. They did, however, take down Menomonie (23-25, 25-14, 15-8) on the final day to land in 38th place.

“We had some times where we had really, really good play,” EPC Head Coach Amanda Webb said. “We had some serving errors that really hurt us, but our play was good.”

One of the matches that stood out to Webb was a three-set loss to Spooner in the team’s opening match.

“I would probably go back to our first match against Spooner. I had some kids that were not able to be there and I had to bring some other kids up that only had one day of practice with us,” Webb said. “The kids executed their play running in system really, really well.”

Webb said they missed about 20 serves which cost them, but when the volleys were going, they looked great.

“It’s good to look at teams at a little different level. What is it like to see teams like that? Not only to watch them, but also to play against them,” Webb said. “What they see and hear just being right across the net from that team and what we can learn from that.”

Getting seven matches in over the weekend was big for EPC, and confidence will be key. Webb said if they make a mistake during a match, they have to learn to wipe it from the memory and move on.