Littlefork-Big Falls fails to hold leads twice in 3-0 defeat

LITTLEFORK — After winning back-to-back Northern Lakes Conference titles in coach Kim Wimmer’s first two seasons, the Littlefork-Big Falls Vikings were eager to win it back after watching Hill City take the crown last year.
The Vikings then beat Hill City on Tuesday to set up a battle of conference unbeatens at home against Nashwauk-Keewatin.
After the dust settled, however, the Vikings walked off the court Thursday empty-handed following a 3-0 loss in the most frustrating of fashions, surrendering leads in Games 1 and 2 before watching the conference crown completely slip away in Game 3. The final tally was 25-23, 26-24, 25-19.
“It wasn’t a good feeling, that’s for sure,” said L-BF senior Whitney Junker, who was on the previous two teams that won conference crowns under Wimmer.
One of the biggest weaknesses for the Vikings early in the season was holding leads and finishing off games, and that came back to bite them Thursday.
“Believe me, they’re as disappointed as anyone,” said Wimmer, who couldn’t pin point a reason for the late-game struggles. “This game meant a lot to a lot of them and maybe that feeling of not wanting to lose like this will give them a spark to fix it.”
The two teams exchanged blows early and were tied 12-12 in the first game before L-BF went on a spurt and led 17-13. The spurt forced Spartans coach Rachel Hasbargen-Glowack to call a timeout, and her team responded by storming back to tie it at 21. It was tied again at 22, but the Vikings never regained the lead. Back-to-back kills by the Spartans made it 24-22 and after an unforced error by the visitors, Kingsbury made a nice tip at the net to win Game 1.
The second game was an even bigger comeback for the Spartans.
L-BF jumped out 8-3, but Hasbargen-Glowack’s timeout this time around didn’t work, and the Vikings rolled to a 17-8 lead. Five straight N-K points, however, made Wimmer call a timeout at 17-13, and the comeback was on. The Spartans caught the Vikings at 24 — after L-BF squandered two chances at game-point — and never looked back. Elizabeth Sletten sniped a kill to make it 25-24, and her next kill was long, but a touch was called and it was onto Game 3.
“We had high potential that we were going to win, but then we got down on ourselves,” Junker said. “We need to be more aggressive.”
The Vikings recovered from a 5-1 deficit with four straight points to tie it in Game 3, but they never led. The Spartans went up by as many as seven at 15-8 and held off a late rush to win their first conference title in school history, or at least that’s what Hasbargen-Glowack thinks. After consulting with the coaching staff and a few surrounding fans, she made one phone call to quickly check on the Spartans’ history. She came away confident it was the school’s first conference title.
Kingsbury led N-K (13-6, 4-0) with 13 kills and five blocks, while Sletten had 11 kills and four blocks. Kourtney Kruger had six kills, including three in a row late in Game 3. Leah Fillman had 32 set assists.
The Vikings (10-7, 3-1) got nine kills and two blocks from Haylee Gates, six kills and two blocks from Junker and three kills from Kari Imhof, while Kristi Bloom had 21 set assists.
For Wimmer, it’s time to get her team prepared for the playoffs, which start in just over two weeks. She’ll have to dive into the weaknesses and hope for a speedy recovery from her libero, Kelly Millerbernd. The senior and third-year player, who hurt her hamstring against Hill City, gave it a go Thursday but didn’t play in Games 2 and 3. The biggest problem, however, will be improving on finishing.
“We’ve seen that problem before when we don’t play all 25 points,” Wimmer said. “That’s something that can’t happen at tournament time.”
Junker believes it can be fixed.
“We’re good and we play good together, but we just get down,” she said. “We need to come back up.”