School history goal comes true for Grafton

By the time they could see their goal nearly in their grasp, it was almost anticlimactic.

The Grafton High School volleyball team, accustomed to playing high-level, four and five-set matches against top competition, ran over and through its final hurdle, sweeping its way to its first berth in the state tournament in program history on Saturday in Whitefish Bay.

Pius XI may still be trying to get the license plate number of what hit it.

The Hawks won, 25-9, 25-13, 25-14, in a Division 2 sectional final that was never in question. Nor was the team’s sheer jubilation afterward.

“All our hard work paid off. It’s just awesome,” junior Grace Tilley said.

“We’re really excited because this was our goal at the beginning of the season. No one thought it was realistic and then seeing it actually come through is really exciting,” junior Abby Barthelemy said.

“Amazing. Never been here before,” junior Paige Proefrock said. “I’m really excited for the team and just to see how far we get.”

Freshman Addison Lempke, standing 6 feet, 1 inch, led the team with 13 kills, quickly shaking off any early nerves to be a dominant force on the front line. Proefrock had 12 kills and Tilley and freshman Brooke Vanden Berg each had five.

“I’m definitely very thrilled to be doing this on a team, especially as a freshman. I think we just worked so hard to get here and I’m very, very proud of us all,” Lempke said.

Lempke had four blocks. Paige Arentz had seven digs and Barthelemy and Proefrock each had five. Arentz had 18 assists and Ava Dotson had 14.

Proefrock had 11 serve receives with no errors, Barthelemy had 10 with no errors and senior Khiah King had 11 with one error.

Serving was a deadly weapon for the Hawks. King led with four of the team’s 12 aces.

She is one of three seniors who is now part of the program’s new legacy.

“It’s exciting to know as a program we’re growing so much and getting a lot better. Grafton wasn’t really known as a good volleyball program, and it’s exciting to know that you’re contributing to that,” she said.

Opponents can’t pick on one or two Hawks to counter at the service line. Five Hawks had at least one ace.

“We all were confident back at the service line and we served our hearts out,” Arentz said.

Coach Ashley Wilson said, “There’s no weak servers on our team. It’s very consistent. We practice it all the time so they know when they’re in that pressure situation that that’s how they’re going to play in those moments.”

Wilson is a first-year coach who was an assistant last season. Getting to know the team last year helped her set the table for success this season.

“I knew the girls as people and as players as well — what they need from their coaches and how each kid needs something different from their coach,” she said.

Saturday’s match carried a fraction of the intensity and competitiveness than that of Thursday’s semifinal did at top-seeded New Berlin West. But the Hawks knew they couldn’t let that affect them.

“We all were confident in ourselves. We knew we had this. We all just had to play like ourselves,” Arentz said.

“We knew what we had to do going into it to get the win and we achieved it,” Dotson said.

The Hawks have developed the past couple of seasons, winning a regional title last year for the first time in a decade, then repeating this year and going further to make school history.

“It’s really developed a lot. With this big junior class we have all played together before so we all trust each other and can rely on each other. Over the season, we’ve got better as a team,” Barthelemy said.

Qualifying for state reaches a goal the team set at the beginning of the season. However, last Friday the Hawks set a new one.

“We knew that was our goal from day one so now our new goal is to win the whole thing,” Wilson said.

Just getting there wasn’t going to be easy, but the Hawks had an edge. They play in the North Shore Conference, filled with larger schools and top-notch programs. They finished 4-2 in the NSC, which helped prepare them for the New Berlin West match in a hostile, loud environment.

The Hawks won, 25-22, 15-25, 25-17, 25-18, showing their development in their ability to close matches.

“I think we’ve been working so hard on finishing. No matter how the beginning of the game starts, we’re going to finish hard, we’re going to score points, we’re going to put the ball down,” King said.

Proefrock had 17 kills and 19 digs. King served four aces and had 11 digs. Barthelemy had 13 digs. Arentz and Dotson each had 14 assists. Proefrock had 20 serve-receives with two errors. Vanden Berg had 16 with no errors and King had 15 with no errors.

“We have come a long way with believing in each other in a whole set. It started and we’re really good through point 20. Then we get a little bit nervous,” Wilson said. “We talked about how it’s a team and one person can’t win the match for us. We’ve just been focusing on that for the last few weeks.”

Grafton (27-10) got a No. 2 seed at state and plays No. 3 Waupaca (27-10) at 10:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 7,  at the Resch Center in Green Bay.

The winner plays at 5 p.m. Saturday , Nov. 8, against the winner of the match between No. 1 Sauk Prairie (29-5) and No. 4 Luxemburg-Casco (34-12).