No Scare in Cedar Falls

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Monday night brought Prep Dig to Cedar Falls to see if Waterloo West could frighten the Undefeated Cedar Falls tigers and advance to state. After all, Waterloo West had recently just snapped the consecutive streak of set victories by Cedar Falls, why not just go ahead and take this match from them and advance to state?</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Haley Eckerman</strong> has done wonders in her first year as a coach for The Warriors. Let's just get that out of the way right now. If she decides to retire from the game and take up coaching, what she did this year for these girls just proves that this volleyball prodigy is a multi-talent.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Starting off the match, Eckerman seemed to have her crew focused and could visualize the trip to Cedar Rapids next week. West started out strong, and kept the score even early.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It was then that everything changed the flow of the match when a missed call on a ball that clearly touched the ceiling and the West girls watched it fall to the ground anticipating the point. Point to the Tigers. The Tigers would not let up from there and three kills later by <strong>Akacia Brown</strong>, the Tigers and pushed their lead to 15 to 10, despite some absolutely inspiring libero play by West's senior <strong>Abigail Payne</strong>.  Cedar Falls would close out set 1 with an ace by Tiger senior <strong>Emily Hayes.</strong></span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">That score of 25 to 15 certainly did not seem as one-sided as the numbers proved and west kept set two close at 8 to 8 while spectators got to see some absolute floor shattering bombs from <strong>Alayna Yates</strong>, the Cedar Falls Junior and <strong>Kaylissa Arndorfer</strong> of West on the other side.  The Cedar Falls lead ballooned to 17-8 behind a huge serving run by Cedar Falls Senior <strong>Emily Klapp</strong>, highlighted by back-to-back Setter dumps by the Tiger's UNI basketball commit. <strong>Emerson Green</strong>, who was fabulous this entire match. West's <strong>Lauren Conrey</strong> brought the Warriors a Little Closer at 17-13 with some inspired serving of her own, but the Tigers closed the set strong bye ending it with a back-row attack for Brown and took set two 25 to 20.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Tigers got in their groove in set 3. <strong>Emerson Green</strong> really shined bright mixing up sets and dumps and keeping West on their heels. The Warriors got a little close at 14-9 as senior <strong>Caitlin Meyer</strong> dropped a couple Aces.  But after that Cedar Falls put their foot on the gas and cruised to a victory score of 25-10, with <strong>Dara Hulstein</strong> making her final touch of a volleyball in a tiger uniform on the Cedar Falls floor count as she pounded home the winning kill.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It would seem that we may be looking at a head-on collision of the Tigers and Centennial in the 5A final. But tigers could face a very tricky semifinal match in Cedar Rapids should they advance past Waukee in the quarters.</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Once again, Prep Dig would like to congratulate Haley Eckerman on how far the West program came under her watch this year. It was very enjoyable to see this program have some great successes throughout the season and play some inspired volleyball.  Best of luck to the West seniors, congrats on your growth, and best of luck to the Tigers next week in Cedar Rapids</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p>