Senior Charlotte Stowe knew when McBain forced a fifth game in the opening round of Class C Regional play at Kingsley that she would be serving during a critical time of the tiebreaker.

Three Suttons Bay players - Fran Belanger (4),
Anna Pryor (3) and Maggie Walters (15) - were poised
at eht net as a McBain player returned a shot in a
Class C Regional match at Kingsley Saturday.

She was right. With Suttons Bay down 14-12 in the final game, Stowe served two straight points to tie the game at 14 and give the Norsemen a chance to win the match. After her next serve, the Ramblers’ Morgan VanderVlucht returned the ball to Suttons Bay and it appeared to land out of bounds. The line judge called the ball “in,” however, giving McBain the point and a 15-14 lead.

“We all watched that ball hit out of bounds, it wasn’t even close. We didn’t focus on the next point and McBain got it,” said senior Anna Pryor. The point for McBain gave the Ramblers a 16-14 win in the tiebreaker, which allowed the Ramblers to move on to the Regional final. The Norse were left stunned, and wondering a little about what happened, after seeing their season come to an end.

McBain used its height, a dogged defense and athletic ability to eliminate Suttons Bay, 21-25, 25-20, 20-25, 25-21, 16-14. It was the second time this year McBain beat the Norse, and the Ramblers went on to win the Regional by defeating Boyne City in the final, 25-20, 25-21, 21-25, 20-25, 15-5. Boyne City defeated Kingsley 25-14, 25-20, 25-14 to reach the final.

Suttons Bay ended its season with an overall record of 50-9-4.

Players from Suttons Bay console each other
after the Norse were eliminated by McBain in a Class
C Regional match Saturday, Nov. 10. Suttons Bay
extended McBain to a fifth and final game before losing.

“I knew that when we were heading into a fifth game, the way the rotation was going, that I would be serving toward the end of the game. When it came time for me to serve, some of the younger players said, ‘I’m glad that’s not me.’ It was nerve-wracking, but I also knew I could do it,” Stowe said.

“I was feeling for Charlotte,” Suttons Bay coach Mike Kelly added. “She was serving at the end of the tie-breaker, she’s a senior and if we lose her season is over. We had talked about this scenario and here she was playing it out.”

Kelly was also left flabbergasted by the call at the end of the game.

“We had tied them 14-14 and the ball was tipped over out of bounds and the guy called it ‘in.’ That was hard to swallow,” he said. Kelly also recognizes that while the players left everything out on the floor, they did not play their best.

Suttons Bay senior Charlotte
Stowe serves to McBain in Saturday's
Regional match.

“It’s not that the girls didn’t try hard, we just didn’t play to our level of ability. We were sloppy,” Kelly said

“Everyone was working their butts off, but we never really clicked in the match, we never got into a rhythm,” Pryor said.

Suttons Bay started strong with 25-21 win. But Pryor said one problem the Bay has had all season is playing consistent in big matches.

“That’s been a big one for us. Sometimes when we start strong like we did Saturday we start thinking, ‘We got this,’ and slack off a little in the second match. Well, that came back to bite us on Saturday,” she said.

Stowe, in her second season as a team captain, didn’t feel there was a lack of effort on anyone’s part. “We played our hardest, not necessarily our best. We all left everything on the floor,” she said.

Stowe had 22 digs, 9 kills, 2 blocks to lead Suttons Bay. Pyror had 43 assists, 2 aces, 13 digs; Arianna Guillen had 10 digs, 3 aces; Fran Belanger had 12 digs, 2 blocks, 4 kills; Crystal Dittrich served 16-for-16, 14 digs; Maggie Walters had 24 kills, 9 digs, 4 blocks, 2 aces; Kelly Kerr had 14 digs, 6 kills, 3 blocks; and Lena Knoll had 6 kills.