LEEDS — A year after going 30-5, Benson County volleyball coach Sheri Stuberg thinks her team has gotten even better.
And that’s despite graduating all-state hitter Aubrey Kenner.
Stuberg couldn’t have been much more complimentary of her squad after last Thursday’s 3-0 win over TGU.
“It was the best teamwork that I’ve ever seen us do,” she said. “We worked as a team. We covered everybody. Everybody did what they needed to do. We served when we needed to serve. We hit when we needed to hit. And they’re running smarter plays than we’ve ever run before. It was cool.”
At the end of last fall, the Wildcats were one set short of making the Division B state tournament.
Sharing many players with the basketball team, which has finished first and third at state over the last two winters, Benson County came into this fall picking up where it left off.
“Really good,” Stuberg said of how the team’s looking. “You can’t put words on it: It’s a feeling. We’ve hit that feeling mark where we are a team. … It’s just exciting. Super exciting.”
After their best player Kenner moved on to play college basketball, the Wildcats aren’t necessarily filling her role with a single person. The key is getting contributions from a host of players.
“You can’t put leadership on one person. You can’t put it on two people,” Stuberg said. “We have said that it has to be a team thing. And that is exactly what they’re doing. That’s what’s making it so cool.”
Benson County opened the season with a 3-0 district win over Four Winds and a 3-0 non-district victory over TGU. Six sets down, six sets won.
One big piece on the offensive side is Lacie Fautsch, who’s now a junior. Fautsch has already been one of Benson County’s tallest and strongest players for years. She’s no longer the young, fresh-faced phenom, but now an established upperclassman.
“She is gonna be unstoppable. She is unstoppable, and everything we expect from her,” Stuberg said. “She’s just been such a good team player this year.”
In Thursday’s match against TGU, Fautsch got off to a relatively slower start. She had two kills in the first set, and many of her hits were of the soft, deceptive variety.
She really kicked it into gear late in the second set. Fautsch had three kills in a four-point span, and four total in a 10-0 run to complete a 25-8 set.
Fautsch ended up leading Benson County with 10 kills on the night. Most of her hits were too sharp and overwhelming for the Titans to handle.
“I think we had some nerves in the first [set],” Stuberg said. “This is only our second game of the season, and I think we had some nerves. And then I think we got rid of them, and then that’s where we showed up.”
Next to Fautsch, the Wildcats have a proven junior in Addisyn Faul, who was second on the team with five kills on Thursday. They’ve also had hitters like Hailey Baker, Genna Nelsen and Brylee Stuberg step up. Stuberg, the head coach’s daughter, is a tall middle blocker who had some noticeably athletic plays on Thursday, totaling four kills and a block.
The glue of the team is junior setter Liberty Streyle, who already has more than 2,000 assists for her career.
“We have an amazing team, where you can’t just shine the spotlight on [Fautsch and Streyle],” Stuberg said. “It’s a whole team. … It’s awesome.”
Perhaps an under-heralded part of the Wildcats’ game is serving. They had three players who tallied four aces each on Thursday, with Streyle, Baker and Kaitlyn Maddock.
Benson County had 15 aces as a team. It was key in taking control of the first two sets in particular, with a 9-0 run fueling a 25-17 win and then the single-digit victory in the second set.
“We had some amazing energy for the first two sets,” Stuberg said. “I thought we were unstoppable in those.”
The Wildcats were a little error-prone in the third set, as a 20-10 lead became 20-16. They still did enough to hold on for a 25-18 victory. Naturally, Fautsch had kills for two of the final three points.
Benson County played TGU early last season, too, and won 3-1. The Wildcats didn’t lose a set this time.
After making it through the region tournament and falling in a five-set state qualifier last fall, they expect to be back in the mix this year. They’re working towards being the first Benson County co-op to ever make a volleyball state tournament — Leeds and Maddock made it individually in 2000 and 1997, respectively, but a Benson County team never has.
“They’re right there,” Stuberg said. “With this team this year, we have everything going for us and nothing stopping us. It’s gonna be a good year.”
Benson County travels to play Drake-Anamoose on Thursday, then goes to the Glenburn tournament on Saturday. The Wildcats will host North Prairie in Leeds on Sept. 15 for their second district match.