St. Anthony Set For State Volleyball Tourney Run

Effingham St. Anthony will be competing at the Class 1A State Volleyball Tournament Friday and Saturday.

Effingham St. Anthony High School is set to begin its run at the Class 1A State Volleyball Tournament Friday as the Bulldogs head to CEFCU  Arena, formerly known as Redbird Arena, on the campus of Illinois State University in Normal.

The Class 1A State Tournament will begin Friday as Hartsburg-Emden takes on Cissna Park at 9 a.m. in the opening match followed by St. Anthony meeting Galena at 10:30. The winners advance to the championship match Saturday at 10:30 a.m. while the losers will play for third place at 9 a.m.

Members of the Bulldogs include Addi Wernsing (senior setter), Nora Ganaway (senior MB), Andrea Rudolphi (senior OH), Laney Coffin (senior RS), Hailey Niebrugge (senior MB), Stacey Vonderheide (senior setter), Abbi Hatton (senior OH), Addi Nuxoll (senior middle), Abbi Thoele (senior RS), Gracie Passalaqua (senior MB), Cara Hatton (freshman RS), Audrey Lasarge (sophomore middle), Maddie Kibler (senior libero) and Anna Niemeyer (senior middle).

The head coach is Kristie Bailey while assistant coaches are Christina Miller, Sara Bernhard and Christiano Oliveira. Managers include Callie Emmerich, Amy Hatton, Theresa Vogt and Sandra Faber.

"I have a great assistant coach Christina Miller," said Bailey. "She is a great help in practice. Along with Christiano, Theresa Vogt and Sara Bernhard, we have had so many great coaches helping and making us better.  I always say the more eyes on the players and the more things people see helps me keep from getting tunnel vision and keeps me growing as a coach.  Each coach has something new to offer and it has been great to listen to them and learn from different styles of coaching."

Coach Bailey talked about her starters.

 "My starters are setter Addi Wernsing. Addi is a great setter. She leads the team in assists. She is going to SWIC for volleyball and softball next year. Laney Coffin starts right front. Laney is a great blocker and hits the ball well on the right and left side. She is usually an outside hitter but has stepped into this role this year well and has really produced blocking for me.

"Abbi Hatton starts middle front. She is an outside hitter. She is my leader in kills at this time. She is our go-to at crunch time and had 22 kills in the sectional match up against Calhoun County. She plays all the way around for me and has the second most digs  on the team. Anna Niemeyer is middle blocker and has really become a valuable player on our team. She does a great job out blocking and getting kills for us in the later part of the year. She is a quiet player but without her in the middle our defense would struggle.

"Andrea Rudolphi is second most kills on the team. She hits on the outside. She is a great weapon out there. She has power and has been on the All Tournament team at Mahomet and National Trail Conference second team honors. Abbi Hatton was first team and Maddie Kibler also first team. Maddie is my Libero. She has over 430 digs for the season. She leads the team in aces and highest serve receive score. She is what makes our team great. She had over 27 digs in a single match.

"Addi Nuxoll is the other middle. Addi was an outside hitter I converted into a middle. She leads the team in blocks and is one of the three people who play six full rotations.  Her defensive blocking and defense in the back row makes her a valuable player on our team. Stacie Vonderheide is my second setter who comes in after three rotations. She is second in assists and defensively has as many digs as my other back row players except for my Libero. She has a great serve and we score well with her serving.

"Cara Hatton is my freshman right side who comes in for three rotations. She had seven kills in the super-sectional which brought our victory to go to State. She also is a great blocker. She has really developed as a freshman."

Coach Bailey listed playing together as one of her team's strengths.

 "As a team our strengths are that we play together. We use all our weapons and try not to rely on one hitter more than others. We keep teams guessing and work very hard at not being predictable."

"This team has 11 seniors. Each of these seniors, Abby Thoele, Nora Ganaway, Hailey Niebrugge and Gracie Passalaqua, are a big part of our team. They keep practice competitive and make our team better. Each one of these players could be a starter on a team, we are just loaded with talent in this class."

St. Anthony competes in the National Trail Conference along with Windsor/Stewardson-Strasburg who also was playing for a super-sectional that would have put it in the same State Tournament as St. Anthony. But the Hatchets lost.

"The NTC was a great tournament for us," said Bailey. "We got second to a very good team, Windsor/Stewardson-Strasburg. We played hard competition and fighting to win games has made us the team we are.  We get behind and we can come back.  We stay focused and fight back one point at a time  This comes from playing a hard schedule. 

"We go to Mahomet a weekend before regionals where we play 3A and 4A schools and have to compete in five matches on that day. No team is a walk through game. We ended up sixth out of 16 teams and played competitive against great teams."

The Bulldogs will square off against Galena Friday at 10:30 a.m.

"We play Galena in the first game," said Coach Bailey. "We have seen some footage but not a lot. What I have seen, they seem to be similar to us. They have three hitters they use most. They have great passing and defense. We will need to serve tough and play great defense and keep the other team guessing and we can win.  I think we have a great chance to advance to the finals on Saturday."

The Bulldogs sport a 32-8 record while Galena counters with a 34-4 mark. This is the first time St. Anthony has competed at the State Tournament.

Leading the Pirates is Gracie Furlong with 388 kills and 297 digs, Addie Hefel with 307 kills and 294 digs, Julia Holland with 33 aces and Nevaeh Habuer with 67 blocks. The team won the Durand Regional, going three sets over Lanark Eastland 25-14, 23-25, 25-14 and Durand 21-25, 25-14, 25-22. The Pirates won the Lanark Eastland Sectional with wins over Newark 25-20, 25-18 and Lena-Winslow 25-23, 25-13 and took the Pecatonica Super-Sectional with 25-20, 25-12 wins over Elgin Harvest Christian Academy.

Head coach is Dennis Wills and the Pirates have competed at the State Tournament in 2018 when they placed second.

The other two teams include Cissna Park Co-op with a 37-3 mark and Hartsburg-Emden with a 32-7 record.