Photos provided by Phil Lozen
Coming off a record breaking 2023 season that saw the Milan volleyball team reach the state semifinals for the first time, the Big Reds recorded another first Saturday by claiming the Chelsea Invitational title.
The tournament title was the first during the regular season in over a decade for the Big Reds as they hope to continue the momentum of last season D2 semifinal run.
Milan started the day slow by falling the Hanover Horton 23-25, 11-25, but bounced back with wins over Coldwater 25-9 and Monroe 25-14, 25-16 to finish 4-2 in pool play and qualify fifth in the gold bracket.
The Big Reds faced the home team Chelsea in the quarter finals and came out on top of the Bulldogs in straight sets 25-16, 25-9 to advance to the semifinals.
The semis were a rematch of last years regional semifinal and it was the same results with the Big Reds coming out on top of St. Catherine 25-16,25-18.
The semifinal win set of a rematch with Hanover Horton for the championship and the Big Reds were ready for the Comets this time.
Milan took the opening set 25-23, but Hanover battled back in the second.
With the aid of six service errors by Milan, the Comets took the second set 25-23 to set up a deciding third set.
The third set was a back and forth affair that saw both teams battle until the final point.
In the final set, Horton led 6-3 early when Milan took its first time out.
Following the time out, Milan tied it at 6 and took its first lead at 8-7 moments later. Horton climbed back to an 11-9 lead before
Aubree Higgins took momentum back with a hard-hit ball down the line. Milan went on a 4-0 run to lead 13-11 on a kill by Higgins, forcing Hanover to take a time out.
The Comets got a kill out of the time out to pull within 13-12, then a tandem block from Madison Slack and Lana Pacholke put Milan on Match point at 14-12.
Horton strung together three straight to take a 15-14 lead and have their own match point. On that point, Wourman dug a Horton attack leading to a perfect set from Slack and a Higgins kill to tie it at 15.
A block by Wourman and Pacholke put Milan on match point again 16-15, but Horton tied it once again at 16. Pacholke won a joust at the net to put Milan up 17-16 and then Parris dug an attempted setter tip from Horton leading to Wourman’s rocket down the line for the championship winning point.
In the finals, Higgins had 15 kills, and Wourman had ten, including the match-winning swing. Lauryn Parris had 12 digs, Laila Frye had ten, Higgins nine and Wourman eight. Slack had 26 assists and seven digs along with two aces.
Milan didn’t record a solo block, but had 16 block assists, led by Pacholke with 7.
“We started this week with the one goal: to be a better tournament team. Not even with the intention of winning the whole tournament, but just being better in tournament play,” Coach Makenna Slack said. “We need to be better at facing different teams and constantly adjusting our game, both defensively and offensively, which the girls did an amazing job of today.”
