Crusaders run into familiar nemesis at state

Catholic Memorial's only three losses on the 2011 boys volleyball regular season came at the hands of Marquette, so when it was the Hilltoppers staring back at the defending state champion Crusaders in the opening round of the WIAA state tournament Friday, it sounded an awful lot like a state-title match.

Marquette happened to be the better team again, topping the Crusaders at Wisconsin Lutheran College, 25-23, 23-25, 25-18, 25-19. Not surprisingly, Marquette went on to win each of the next two matches Saturday to take home the gold ball, its sixth since 2002.

"It really came down to serving and passing," said CMH coach Mike Hanneman. "We didn't serve tough enough for them to not use their middles, and we weren't passing well enough to get our middles involved as much as we'd like to."

A turning point in the first set loomed large. Senior Trevor Novotny, named the state's Player of the Year for a second straight season later in the weekend, was unstoppable, registering 9 of his 24 kills in that game alone and helping his team to a 23-22 lead. With the score knotted at 23-all, Novotny had another kill from the back row but was whistled for having a foot on the 10-foot attack line before lift off.

Marquette won the next point and had clinched the first set.

"I think it was a mental mistake on my part," said Novotny. "I wasn't real sure of where I was. It was definitely a game changer. My back row hitting was pretty good tonight, but that one time was just a mental mistake on my part. It was a great set."

With the score tied at 23-all again in the second set, the Crusaders broke through this time, getting kills from Josh Hovie and Novotny to seal the deal. But the Hilltoppers took a 12-4 lead in the third set and went a stretch in the fourth set where it won 9 of 12 points to take control.

"That's a heck of a team, and they deserve it," Novotny said. "It sucks we had to play them in the first round, but I still think our team played very well regardless of the outcome. … I think there are days when we're the best team in the state, and I think there are days when we're not in the top five. That's just how it goes. It depends on who plays the best at the end of the year, and Marquette played better than us tonight."

Tim Heyrman had 41 assists and 22 digs, Hovie finished with three blocks, and Connor Braun added a pair of aces and 13 digs. Eric Schmitz finished with eight kills.

"It would have been nice to have that first game, there's no question about that, but what can you do?" Hanneman said. "You move on, and the second game we kept playing hard. I'm proud of my guys, they played their hearts out."