Hermantown Wins Esko Volleyball Tournament

Wes Vork-NSO

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Oct 11

Wes Vork-NSO

ESKO – Volleyball fans were treated to some very entertaining volleyball on Saturday as Esko hosted its annual tournament.
At the end of the day, Hermantown came out on top by beating Deer River to claim first place honors. With the championship win, the Hawks avenged an earlier 21-25, 18-25 loss to the Warriors in pool play.

Host Esko, after losing to Hermantown by scores of 25-20, 16-25, and 3-15, rebounded to finish third. The Eskomos made short work of International Falls 25-11 and 25-18 in claiming the third place prize.

Moose Lake–Willow River defeated Duluth Marshall to finish up with a win and a fifth place trophy.

The Cloquet Lumberjacks finished up in seventh place by losing a pair of games at the end of a long day to Duluth Marshall by scores of 17-25 and 20-25.

In a sign that indicates the young Cloquet team is probably a bit better than their record indicates is the amount of close games they have been involved in lately. While not winning a match on Saturday, they took #2 Deer River to three tight games with scores of 21-25, 29-27 and 12-15. The Jacks then took #4 International Falls to the limit, losing 23-25, 25-17 and 13-15 in three games again.

Katie Konietzko led the Jacks efforts with 27 kills and 34 digs. Right behind her in the stat column was Katie Shultz with 20 kills and 27 digs. Keanna Karulak also had a great day running the offense with 74 set assists to go with her 17 digs.

Saturday was a continuance of the very competitive “could go either way nature” of Cloquet’s games of late. Over the past week Cloquet won a very tight four game match against Carlton and dropped a tight five game match to Ashland on the road.

Although they came up just a bit short in the end, the Eskomos had a very successful day, with Hermantown the only team that was able to provide a challenge for the Eskomos.

Esko advanced through the tournament by topping ML-WR 25-13, 25-18, Cloquet 25-17, 25-11 and Duluth Marshall 25-11, 25-10 before running into the Hawks. The Eskomos fell behind early and though they worked their way back into the game with some excellent runs and won game one 25-20, it appeared they used up a bit too much energy in the process. Hermantown would go on to win games two and three by scores of 25-16 and 15-3.

For the Eskomos, Kayla Handevidt finished with an out of this world 42 kills, 21 blocks and 9 ace serves. Also helping out on the day were Lydia Pelletier with 13 kills and 12 blocks, Janae Beaudot with 25 digs, and Keely Deadrick with 68 set assists.

Wes Vork can be reached at wes@northlandsportsonline.com