Varsity Girls Volleyball Falls to Superior in Championship Match

The Hudson Varsity Girls Volleyball team came up just short in a heart wrenching, third set loss to Superior in the championship game of their Invitational Tournament this Saturday afternoon.

While Hudson won the first set 25-19, Superior claimed the second 27-25 to introduce a third, deciding set in which teams fought neck and neck. Superior finally prevailed in extra points, 16-14.

Though undefeated until the Championship match, the beginning of the tournament was anything but a breeze for the Raiders.

“We started the day with three girls at the ACT test, so we had JV girls that played in place," remarked Head Coach Dennis Saathoff. "We started out not used to playing with each other."

In addition to the unfamiliar roster, Hudson faced fierce competition from the start.

“It was all pretty even; they were all tight matches,” Saathoof said.

Hudson beat only Menomonie in two sets (25-19, 25-20), while matches against both Maple Northwestern (16-25, 25-14, 16-14) and Bloomer (25-19, 23-25, 15-10) moved on to three.

Despite welcoming back their standardized testers and fighting hard until the end, Hudson could not recuperate in time for the championship win.

“We hadn’t played all day together. We made too many mistakes on our own; unforced errors, that’s what cost us the match,” said Saathoff.

“We just have to finish,” commented senior co-captain Maddie Drewiske.

Saathoff hopes to learn from the weekend.

“There were some areas we struggled in all day,” Sathoff said. “We’re definitely going to work on those things.”

The complete list of tournament participants included Hudson, Bloomer, Maple Northwestern, Menomonie, Somerset and Superior High Schools.

The tournament was played in a best of three game format. The tournament seeding was determined by match wins.

The Varsity Girls Volleyball team will square off against one of today's rivals again at home on Tuesday in a 7:15 pm match vs. Menomonie.