Esko Falls In First Round Tournament Action

Nov 11

Wes Vork-NSO

Wes Vork-NSO

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Nov 11

Kerry Rodd-NSO
Despite a sterling 28-1 record going into the Minnesota State Girls Volleyball Tournament, the Esko Eskomos were not given a top 4 seed. Instead the Eskomos drew the #4 seed Stewartville a perennial tournament entrant making their 20th appearance. The Tigers delivered a near perfect performance in routing the Eskomos 25-12, 25-20 and 25-18 to move on to the semi-finals in Class AA.

“We just didn’t play our game,” said Esko coach Desi DeLeon following the game. “We showed spurts, but not enough.”

While Esko was playing in spurts the Tigers were playing a methodical game that allowed them to cruise to the win. A key to the three game sweep was a big win in game one that set the Eskomos back on their heels. With the score 5-4 in favor of the Tigers they went on a 12-3 run to take a 17-8 lead. Danielle DeGeus scored six straight points during that run as the Tigers built an insurmountable lead.

“They were a good blocking team, but we adjusted,” explained DeLeon. “They adjusted by not hitting the ball at the blocker.”

Game two was a tight game and tied at 13-13 before the Tigers went on a 10-1 roll to go up 23-14. Esko did manage to fight back to within 23-19, but a service error allowed Stewartville to grab the momentum back and eventually win 25-20.

The final game was another even game through the middle section of the affair, in fact it was tied at 10-10, but again the Tigers went on an 11-6 run to build another significant lead and eventually take the win.

Esko seemed to be their own enemy at times as they had a number of unforced errors that cost them the win.

“We just made too many mistakes,” remarked DeLeon. “With any team you have to expect some shots to be blocked and Steph Bandelin found their holes for us, but some of the others struggled a bit.”

Bandelin led Esko with 13 kills, while Alyson Glumac had seven kills and a pair of blocks. Lydia Pelletier chipped in with five kills and six digs and Keely Deadrick finished with 26 set assists.

The Tigers were led by Lindsay Blahnik with 11 kills and three blocks, Hannah Tapp with 10 kills and six blocks and Paige Tapp with nine kills.

Esko will play Presentation High School in the consolation round at 5:00pm Friday at the Xcel Energy Center.

Kerry Rodd can be reached at kerry@northlandsportsonline.com