DEVILS LAKE — Both times that Devils Lake volleyball met Harvey/Wells County in 2025, the match went to five sets.
So what happened when they met for the first time in 2026?
It went to five sets. Again.
“I don’t want to go five next time I see them,” Devils Lake head coach Tangella Martinson said. “I want to go three. That’s what I want to do.”
The latest five-setter resulted in a long, stressful night.
The No. 5-ranked Firebirds barely pulled out a win over a receiving-votes Harvey/Wells County team at the Devils Lake Sports Center on Tuesday. But Devils Lake (11-0, 2-0) remained undefeated nonetheless, winning 3-2 in a Region 2 contest against the Hornets (8-2, 2-1).
“We just needed to bring the energy and pick back up and play how we normally do,” said junior hitter Emma Hofstad, who led the Firebirds with 23 kills in the marathon match.
Set scores were 26-24, 22-25, 21-25, 25-23 and 15-13.
“I honestly do not think that we brought our best game today,” Martinson said.
Devils Lake was coming off a triumph in Casselton, where the Firebirds were champions of a 20-team tournament. They went 6-0, including a win over Thompson in the championship.
“I just saw a different group of girls [in Casselton] than I saw tonight. I saw a group of girls that took risks and were more confident,” Martinson said. “I think Harvey is a very scrappy team, and that kind of throws our defense off a little bit. But we need to be more on our toes. We have some work to do from tonight.”
Devils Lake squeaked away with the first set, 26-24, after six lead changes. Hofstad came out particularly strong, taking just two sets to surpass double-digit kills on the night. She capped the win with an ace on Devils Lake’s second set point.
Despite losing five points in a row to go down 23-22, the Firebirds grabbed a 1-0 match lead.
They took two timeouts in the set, and promptly scored the next two points after each of the timeouts. On the night, Devils Lake scored first after seven of the 11 timeouts.
“I really think that my girls trust me, and I trust them,” Martinson said. “And I just want to instill that confidence in them because I know all of them can do their job and they can do it well. They just need reminders at times, when their brain is playing tricks on them that they’re not doing well.”
H/WC edged into the lead with wins of 25-22 and 25-21.
The Hornets had two separate 5-0 runs in the second set, including one that gave them a 21-17 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
Hornets hitter Braylee Keller had 19 kills unofficially, while middle blocker Emersyn Wolfe had nine and Ava Kara had eight.
Devils Lake had to reconvene as a team, facing a 2-1 deficit.
“We need to fix our energy and play as a team and just remain positive,” Hofstad said of the message in the huddle.
The Firebirds held a stern talk on the sideline, but it ended with loud cheers.
“I just told them that they need to go all in,” Martinson said. “Sometimes, I’m the coach that gives them confidence. And I believe in them even when they make mistakes. And I was just kind of firm with them those first two sets, and so I kind of just said, ‘I don’t hold grudges. It’s a new game. Deep breath.’ And just told them to come in with a whole brand new mindset.”
The Firebirds took control in the fourth set, with a lead as large as 20-15. But they had to swat off a Hornets comeback to force a fifth set. H/WC went on a 7-0 run that featured three kills by Layne Allmaras, who also had eight unofficially on the night.
Down 23-22, Devils Lake was two points away from potentially losing the match 3-1.
“They just were a little too much in their heads tonight,” Martinson said.
Devils Lake ended H/WC’s run on a block by Riley Remmick, then tied it on a kill by Kinley Johnson, who was second on the Firebirds with 17 overall. Johnson had four aces on the night, including one that clinched the penultimate point in a 25-23 fourth-set win to keep Devils Lake alive.
Just like they had to fight for everything Tuesday night, they had to earn their fifth-set win, too. The Firebirds trailed 8-3 out of the gates.
A kill by Johnson and an ace by Brynlee Wolf helped them rattle off four in a row.
Still down 12-9, Hofstad got Devils Lake back in the scoring column with a kill. Kaylee Whalen also came up with back-to-back hits to help tie it. Sara Kraft pushed a two-handed kill to give Devils Lake a 13-12 lead.
It ended on an error.
Hofstad and Johnson combined for 40 kills, while Whalen added seven and Kraft had five. Wolf led the setting with 27 assists, while Remmick had 19. Libero Elin Skaar had 20 digs.
It was the Firebirds’ second five-set win during their 11-0 start.
It’s a reverse of course from last year, when three of their first five region matches were five-set losses.
“We do a lot of scenarios in practice, so like we’ll scrimmage our JV team and we’ll be down like 10 points. I just want them to know that they can come back from anything,” Martinson said. “Four errors, five errors doesn’t mean that the game is over. Like tonight, I saw it on their face. I said, ‘Your faces need to change because you’re telling me you already lost the game. And you haven’t. You need to fight all the way to the end.’ Because, I mean, that fifth set was tight. Just fighting till the end, going through those scenarios, knowing that they can come back from really any type of gap in points is good for them to know.”
This was the first of three consecutive home region matches.
On Thursday, Sept. 17, the Firebirds host Hillsboro/Central Valley, a team that lost in five sets to No. 3 Carrington and defending state champion May-Port-C-G. Devils Lake then hosts Carrington on Tuesday.
“I think we just need to anticipate a little bit more, come in with a little bit more energy, that kind of thing,” Martinson said. “I also feel like there’s a lot of pressure when we play at home, which I’m glad we have these couple matches, so we can get that kind of mental game out of the way.”