Seniors left legacy on Chippewa County state volleyball teams
· Yahoo Sports
GREEN BAY — To reach the state volleyball tournament, you need to have leadership.
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Luckily for Chippewa Falls McDonell, Stanley-Boyd and Chippewa Falls, all three teams were blessed with a strong senior collective this fall, leading to each making the trip to Green Bay last week.
The Macks claimed the Division 4 state championship on Saturday at the Resch Center, largely in part to their four members of the 2027 graduating class.
“Seniors left their mark, right?” McDonell coach Kat Hanson said. “More so than just a state championship, they left a mark on this team, and it was a joy to be able to be on the journey with them and watch them grow into leaders in their own way. Because of that and their ability to interact with their teammates, that’s why they’re standing here today, and we’re going to miss them.”
McDonell dispatched everyone in its postseason path with seniors Anne and Erin Siegenthaler, Rylie Christianson and Kherington Mosack leading the charge.
“I think our senior group is such a close-knit group,” Christianson said. “We are a very solid core, and I think of us as the big sisters in the group.”
In the Macks’ dominant, championship-winning showcase on Saturday, the foursome tallied 41 assists, 38 digs, 21 kills and five blocks.
“This is what we’ve wanted for a really long time. So, I’m just super grateful for everybody,” Christianson said.
“The seniors were the energy,” McDonell sophomore Taylan Hanson said. “They were like the pick you up after a hard play, the funny moments at practice, singing loudly in the back of the bus. All the small moments add up to where we are today.”
The Division 3 runner-up Orioles had two seniors this season in outside hitter Kelly Lew and libero Kennedy Reed.
Their voices and their play helped mold a young Stanley-Boyd team into a state contender.
“I think these two have marked a really high legacy at Stanley-Boyd,” Weinsch said. “With Kelly reaching 1,000 kills this year and 1,000 digs, Kennedy was close to 500 digs, I hope that the youth and the young girls look up to them.”
Lew, the Western Cloverbelt Conference Player of the Year, led the Orioles with 20 kills in the championship match, while combining with Reed for 40 digs.
Though they came out on the wrong side of the five-set thriller, Lew and Reed left satisfied with where they left the Orioles’ future.
“I’m very happy because I know next year they will go to state too because this team is just so good,” Reed said.
“I told them in the locker room, ‘Next year we’ll be in the stands watching you guys in this same match, but you’re going three sets and you’re winning it,’” Lew said. “It brought a little spark to them. Their high school season is not over yet. They still have multiple years (or) a year to prove themselves and prove who Stanley-Boyd volleyball is.”
Stanley-Boyd will dearly miss its two seniors, who left appreciative of their time as Orioles.
“(I’ll remember) us as teammates and like the laughter we have,” Reed said. “(In) our practices, we’re always happy and we’re like, ‘We’re ready to go to state,’ and we just were so happy together.”
Lew, especially, will be thankful for playing alongside her sophomore sister Amanda for two years.
“I’m grateful for the opportunities I had with her, and we brought home a trophy,” Lew said. “I hope my little sister sees this and uses it to push her. I just loved playing with Amanda, and I’m so glad I had this opportunity with her to make it all the way here.”
The Cardinals didn’t need to make the state tournament to prove how special their 2027 class was.
Seniors Barrett Boisvert, Emma Hoepner and Mya Johnson all played huge parts in the development of a young Cardinals roster this fall. That continued leadership culminated in a special run to the Division 1 state quarterfinals.
“It’s going to make me really miss especially these two ladies and Mya,” Cardinals coach Luke Heidtke-Starks said. “I’ve worked with them for a really long time. As I do this more, I work with kids in middle school, so I know them from when they’re like sixth graders. So to have them leave the program makes me really sad, but I’m so happy to have worked with them, and it just shows that it’s part of something special.”
That something special will be with Boisvert, Hoepner and Johnson as they continue on in their volleyball lives like Boisvert at UW-Eau Claire and in life in general.
“The last two weeks have been crazy,” Hoepner said. “It just shows how hard we’ve worked because beating two top teams in Wisconsin is really impressive. We were just underdogs, and we proved to everybody that we can do it.”
“The fact that we were underdogs throughout this all, we proved to everyone that we can just show up and play our game, and I think that really was great,” Boisvert said.