Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – State kills leader Reese Naeve didn’t have her most prolific hitting night on Thursday.

Naeve still found a way to make a major impact and her Regina teammates picked up the slack offensively as Class 2A No. 10 Regina downed West Branch 25-20, 22-25, 25-13, 25-23 in a River Valley Conference South Division contest in Iowa City.

Naeve had a match-high 21 kills and added four ace serves and a block while three other Regals combined for 20 kills as Regina improved to 11-9 on the season and 2-1 in RVC South Division play.

“If my hitting is off I try to focus on my other skills,” Naeve said. “If my hitting isn’t on or if I am making errors I always have my passing and my serving and being a good teammate to help our team and my teammates all have my back and that helps.”

West Branch (6-7, 1-2) did a strong job defensively on Naeve who entered Thursday’s match with 257 kills on the season, 34 more than any other player in the state.

The Bears kept Naeve in check for most of the night especially in the second set as West Branch scored three of the final four points in a 25-22 win that evened the match at one set apiece.

Naeve and the Regals responded.

Regina bolted to an 8-3 lead in the third set and closed out the win with a late rally that snapped a 21-all tie in the fourth set.

“It was really just some of our own errors,” Naeve said. “The third set we had to start out dominating and we just needed to get up fast and early and stay up.”

West Branch led the opening set 15-14 but Regina responded with a 7-0 run that featured a kill and an ace serve by Naeve to take a 21-15 lead it would never give up.

The second set was tied at 19 but this time it was West Branch that made the plays later.

Three Regina errors gave the Bears a 22-19 lead and West Branch put the set away with blocks by Julia Herring and Sophia Petrin and a Briley Kaalberg kill.

With the match even at one set each Regina took control.

“We had to focus on trying to have them make the errors and keep it clean on our side,” junior setter Nora Wilhelm said. “We had to make sure we had more energy and got excited about every point.”

Regina never trailed in a 25-13 win in the third set and put the match away with a 25-23 win in the fourth that ended with an Ella Keune kill.

“I think it was more so going back to what our game plan was,” Lauren Hansen said. “We went back to our style of volleyball, we are really great defensively we just needed to get back to what that looks like for us.”

Naeve had at least five kills in every set but she he plenty of help on Thursday especially late.

Keune had five of her eight kills in the final two sets while Ruby Greving finished with seven kills.

Adalee Klein added five kills and freshman Jada Wiltz had three kills and two ace serves.

“As the season goes on we keep getting a better connection,” Wilhelm said. “That’s really beneficial because when we get a triple block on Reese we can get a wide open Ella or a wide open Ruby and that’s great.”

Regina finished with 13 ace serves including three from junior libero Addison Bollier.

Briley Kaalberg led West Branch with eight kills and a block while freshman Ava Lacina had nine kills.

“Our blocking patterns we just had to make sure we identified early,” Hansen said. “Briley (Kaalberg) is pretty amazing so we wanted to make sure we knew where she was at all times and make sure that we could defend her.”

West Branch              20  25  13  23  

Regina                        25  22  25  25

Regina (Kills-aces-blocks)

Kylie Mattoon 0-2-0, Ella Keune 8-0-0, Adalee Klein 5-0-0, Jada Wiltz 3-2-0, Reese Naeve 21-4-1, Ruby Greving 7-0-0, Addison Bollier 0-3-0, Lily Nibaur 0-1-0, Nora Wilhelm 2-1-0, Leah Sickels 2-0-1, Totals 48-13-2.

Assists – Nora Wilhelm 41

West Branch (Kills-aces-blocks)

Sophia Petrin 1-0-1, Kainoa Senio 3-0-0, Kennedy Simpson 7-0-0, Ava Burnett 1-0-0, Addi Finley 1-1-0, Julia Herring 3-0-1, Briley Kaalberg 8-0-1, Alyssa Vargason 5-1-1, Ava Lacina 9-0-0, Totals 38-2-4.

Assists – Ava Burnett 16, Sophia Petrin 10

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