Bedlam in Grafton:

Port Washington High School volleyball coach Paul Jungbauer slammed down the folder he used to tell his team where to serve and bolted onto the court. His players had already started the screaming, hugs and high fives indicative of what they accomplished seconds before.

About a half hour before that, the Pirates were on the brink of defeat, down two games to none in the playoffs on the road against a longtime rival that already won two matches in the season series.

But this time No. 3-seeded Port would not be denied in its quest to beat No. 2-seeded Grafton in a regional semifinal of the Division 1 tournament.

After losing Game 1, 25-21, and Game 2, 26-24, the Pirates dug deep and came all the way back, winning the next three games, 25-16, 25-20, 15-12.

It was the first time Port wasn’t swept in the first round of the playoffs since 2016.

“It’s been a long four years and a hard four years. It’s a relief to finally have something going our way and for our school,” senior Hailey Sullivan said.

Port’s only other senior, Kelly Fischer, said “it means that our season keeps going. We don’t want it to end.”

Grafton beat Port in five games on Sept. 22, then swept the Pirates on Oct. 3, winning each game by two points.

“Neither side deserved to lose. We just were happy to be on the right side today,” Jungbauer said.

The Black Hawks reacted accordingly after their season ended in a heartbreaker at home. They sobbed in each other’s arms for minutes after the match. It was the last for seniors Sarah Paschke, Sydney Howell and Julia Sandoval.

Grafton coach Tim Vanderwerff said he knows what it’s like trying to beat a team three times in one season. When he played in college, he said, his teams would often lose two matches in the regular season and then win in the playoffs.

“They knew what we were doing before we were doing it,” he said of Port’s familiarity with the Black Hawks’ strategy.

Port took a 4-1 lead in the fifth game before Grafton tied it at 5. After ties at 7, 8 and 10, the Hawks took a 12-10 lead on a Julia Sandoval kill and a Port kill attempt that landed out of bounds.

But Port stormed back, winning the next five points with the help of two Sullivan kills and a Carolyn Lippe ace.

Going into the fifth game, Port’s kills leader Jennacy Wille said the thought was, “It’s going to be a sweet, sweet victory if we win this — when we win this.

“We won by so much in the third and then the fourth (games), going into the fifth we kind of felt unbeatable.”

“We’ve been practicing the last week crazy hard. We just wanted this game so bad,” sophomore Carolyn Lippe said.

Wille led Port with 12 kills, and Lippe had 11. Sydney Hoeft had 21 assists and Julia Schmit had 18.

Wille served five aces and Amira Szczepanski had three. Szczepanski had 23 digs, Wille had 18, Hoeft had 17 and Lippe had 11.

In Game 3, Port built a 17-6 lead, and in Game 4 jumped out to a 14-6 edge.

“It’s something that we have been working hard on the last couple of weeks in practice — starting faster, starting stronger. We were able to do that in sets 3, 4 and 5 and that definitely was the key,” Jungbauer said.

The team, he said, drew on its experience beating Homestead in five games on the road Sept. 22. That fifth game was 15-13.

Stats weren’t available for Grafton, but Sandoval, Abigail Proefrock, Lauren Malchow and Julia Marti racked up the kills and blocks, while Paschke had enough digs to reach the earth’s core.

“Grafton is a very solid team,” Jungbauer said.

Vanderwerff said his team “probably thought we already had it in the bag” after winning the first two games.

“It’s best of five for a reason. No one knows who’s going to win the fifth set. It’s the weirdest time in volleyball,” he said.

He said his team got much better since starting practice on Sept. 7 and praised his three seniors. Paschke played well as the serve receive captain, Sandoval is “one of the smartest middles in the conference” and

Hoeft is athletic and still reaching her potential, Vanderwerff said.

The Hawks finished 3-8 on the season, 2-6 in the North Shore Conference.

Port’s season ends at hands of Slinger

Port was swept by Grafton on Oct. 15, 25-15, 2-5-20, 25-9, and last Saturday at home kept the games closer against an athletic conference opponent.

The Owls earned a No. 6 seed but Jungbauer said that they had been missing players throughout the season due to Covid-19. Now that they’re back, he said, Slinger is a tough out.

The Owls topped the Pirates, 25-18, 25-21, 25-18.

Slinger built a 17-9 lead in Game 1 and Port would only get as close as 21-16.

Game 2 was tied at 10 when the Owls went on a 9-2 run. Port closed to 23-20 on a Lippe kill, triggering a Slinger timeout. The Owls won two of the next three points.

Game 3 featured more ties than a Father’s Day sale at the former Anchor Men’s Wear in downtown Port, with the score knotted at 1 through 11, then 13 and 16. The Owls finally pulled away, closing the game and match on a 9-2 run.

An untimely missed serve, surprise set or tip for a kill by the Owls was just enough to get them past the Pirates.

“When you’re a young team, you have to build up this memory bank of opportunities and be able to draw upon that memory,” Jungbauer said.

Port’s frontline disrupted the Owls’ attack. Jungbauer credited assistant coach Jamie Wille for working on blocks the day before.

Wille had eight kills, Lippe had seven and Elyse Karrels had four.

Schmit had 18 assists. Wille had 14 digs, Lippe had 12 and Schmit and Hoeft had nine each.

“I thought we did a very good job defensively. We just had a couple of times we ran into where they were a better team,” Jungbauer said.

Port finished 7-9 overall, 1-7 in the NSC.

“I’m extremely proud of how our girls competed this postseason,” Jungbauer said in his first year at Port after spending several years as Ozaukee’s head coach.

“If you ask anybody in the conference, (the program) definitely is going in the right direction.”