Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

The field for the state volleyball tournament is starting to take shape.

By the end of the night on Wednesday all 40 teams across five classes will have secured spots at the state tournament scheduled for November 3-6 at Xtream Arena in Coralville.

Teams in the three largest classes earned spots at the state tournament on Tuesday and the focus shifts to the small schools on Wednesday with regional finals in Classes 1A and 2A.

Before the action gets underway on Wednesday night here is a look at the Class 2A regional final between Sumner-Fredericksburg and Regina.

Class 2A, Region 8

No. 10 Sumner-Fredericksburg (26-14) vs. No. 8 Regina (29-13)

Where: Center Point-Urbana High School

When: Wednesday, 7 p.m.

Players to watch: Sumner-Fredericksburg senior setter Alexa Buhman ranks fifth in Class 2A with 867 assists and has 96 kills, 238 digs, 30 blocks and 40 ace serves.

About the Regals: Regina is after a second consecutive trip to the state tournament after returning for the first time since 2017 last year.

The Regals are clicking down the stretch.

After opening the season 12-10 Regina has gone 17-3 in October and has won 10 of its last 12 matches.

The Regals have October wins over state qualifiers Mid-Prairie and Marion and haven’t dropped a set in a pair of regional wins over Danville and West Burlington.

Regina is led by senior Reese Naeve who is leading the state in kills for the second consecutive season.

An Iowa State recruit, Naeve enters the regional title game with a state-best 667 kills on .336 hitting and has 474 digs, 38 blocks and 35 ace serves.

Senior Ella Keune has 166 kills and senior Ruby Greving has 126 kills for Regina while junior Adalee Klein has 124 kills on .235 hitting to go with a team-high 65 blocks.

Junior setter Nora Wilhelm ranks second in Class 2A with 977 assists and junior libero Addison Bollier leads Class 2A with 744 digs.

About the Cougars: Sumner-Fredericksburg is seeking its fourth state tournament appearance in the past six seasons after missing out last season.

The Cougars have won at least 25 matches each of the past six seasons but missed a trip to the state tournament a year ago, falling to Aplington-Parkersburg in the regional title game.

All but two of the 14 losses for the Cougars this season are to ranked opponents including nine losses to top-ranked teams in Class 2A.

Sumner-Fredericksburg has also showed an ability to defeat top competition, posting 10 wins over ranked teams including a win over 2A top-ranked Denver which is the only loss of the season for the Cyclones.

Senior setter Alexa Buhman runs a Sumner-Fredericksburg attack that features three players with better than 150 kills.

Freshman Hannah Buhman leads the Cougars with 363 kills on .313 hitting while senior Addi Murray has 274 kills and junior Callie Trainor has 169 kills and a team-high 58 blocks.

Sophomore Erin Steege ranks third in Class 2A with 502 digs.

What to watch: Regina and Sumner-Fredericksburg met earlier this month at the Waterloo Columbus tournament with Regina winning a tight three-set match (25-20, 24-26, 15-9).

The stats from that Regina win were as even, or perhaps more even, than the final score.

Regina held a slim 39-37 edge in kills and had two more digs and one more ace serve than the Cougars.

What’s all that mean for Wednesday?

Maybe not all that much other than it should be another tight match from start to finish.

Reese Naeve had 16 kills in the win over Sumner-Fredericksburg on October 4 but perhaps equally importantly Adalee Klein had 10 kills on .714 hitting in that win.

Klein is coming off a 17-kill effort in a semifinal sweep of West Burlington and her ability to be affective in the middle as a compliment to Naeve on the outside will be a key.

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