Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – With four freshmen among six first-year starters in the rotation Liberty High had a few growing pains and some learning moments during an 18-21 regular season.

In their postseason opener on Thursday the youthful Lightning did a lot of growing up.

Class 4A No. 14 Liberty High used late rally to outlast Ottumwa 25-19, 21-25, 26-24, 25-22, 15-13 in a Region 8 semifinal thriller in North Liberty.

“I think tonight was a big hump to get over,” Liberty High coach Allie Kelly said. “We knew Ottumwa was a really good team, we knew they had some really great attackers and a really great libero so for our girls to keep believing in each and just keep going even when it wasn’t going in our favor shows a lot of maturity that we hadn’t seen out of them yet.”

Junior Asta Hildebrand had six of her 24 kills in the fifth set as defending 5A state champion Liberty High advanced to take on seventh-ranked Ankeny (23-14) in the Region 8 title game on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Ankeny swept Urbandale in the other Region 8 semifinal on Thursday.

“I think this can really help the confidence of some of the young girls,” Hildebrand said. “They don’t realize how good we are so this will definitely boost that confidence.”

The youngsters in the Lightning lineup were excellent on Thursday.

Freshman Hadley Miller had 11 kills and 35 assists, freshman Sydney Van Heukelom had eight kills and two blocks and sophomore Lucy Maassen had 24 kills.

With the match on the line the Lightning turned to their leader and Hildebrand delivered.

Hildebrand had six kills in the decisive fifth set with her 24^th and final kill starting a 3-0 Lightning run that closed out the match.

“We just starting blocking and talking more and think we had smarter shots,” Hildebrand said of the fifth set. “We definitely stepped it up hitting, defense just all around. We had a lot of girls take their role and run with it.”

Ottumwa (27-9) was up for the challenge from the outset.

After Liberty High won the opening set 25-19 the Bulldogs evened the match with an emphatic 25-21 win in the second.

Ottumwa took seemingly took control of the match when it scored the final three points of the third set to earn a 26-24 win.

With its back against the wall Liberty High answered.

Maassen and Hildebrand combined for 11 kills as Liberty High forced a fifth set with a 25-22 win in the fourth.

“We talked about focusing on the next point,” Maassen said. “We had to focus and we knew that we would make mistakes but we talked about celebrating each other. It’s really important to go to your teammate and pick them up.”

One of the six first-year starters in the Liberty High lineup Maassen was fantastic in the first postseason start of her career.

The 5-foot-8 sophomore had at least four kills in each of the first four sets and had two late in the fifth-set win.

“I think early in the year we anticipated her being a good other option on the right pin but she has grown into a primary attacker and we can depend on her,” Kelly said of Maassen. “She is a freak athlete, she has played a much bigger role than we thought she would but we’ve been really happy to see that.”

The fifth set was back-and-forth until the late Liberty High surge.

Ottumwa took a 13-12 lead on an ace serve by Sydney Rockhold.

Liberty High pulled even on a Hildebrand and after a Bulldog hitting error Hadley Miller had the match-clinching cross-court kill.

“It’s kind of reminiscent of 2019 when we had kind of our first trip to state and it was the first time for those younger kids seeing that success and I think that’s kind of what tonight was,” Kelly said. “They saw some postseason success.”

Liberty High            25  21  24  25  15

Ottumwa                    19  25  26  22  13

Liberty High (Kills-aces-blocks)

Edie Miller 0-1-0, Hadley Miller 11-1-0, Asta Hildebrand 24-0-1, Lucy Maassen 24-0-0, Sydney Van Heukelom 8-0-2, Ellie Wilson 8-0-0, Sydney Hested 3-0-0, Totals 78-2-3.

Assists – Hadley Miller 35, Asta Hildebrand 25

Ottumwa (Kills-aces-blocks)

Sydney Rockhold 0-2-0, Miya Fuller 22-1-1, Makayla Brown 8-0-4, Brylee Jaeger 18-2-2, Khloe O’Brien 2-0-0, Avery Franke 0-1-0, Vada Monaghan 3-0-1, Violet Hougland 3-0-0, Totals 56-6-8.

Assists – Rylea Hinebaugh 29, Khloe O’Brien 17, Camdyn Crouse 1

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