GREEN BAY, Wis. – The year-long wait was worth it for St. Croix Falls.

St. Croix Falls players celebrate with fans at the Resch Center in Green Bay after the Saints five-set victory over Howards Grove in the Divsion 3 championship match at the Wisconsin state girls volleyball tournament. (photo by Jim Hoehn)

The top-ranked Saints defeated four-time defending champ Howards Grove in an epic five-match struggle Saturday to win the Division 3 championship at the Wisconsin girls state volleyball tournament.

St. Croix Falls (36-2), which lost to Howards Grove in the title game last season, dropped the first set 25-17, but won the next two 25-23 and 25-18. Howards Grove overcame a 21-16 deficit in the fourth set to win 26-24. The Saints then overcame an 11-8 deficit in the decisive fifth set.

“These girls fought hard, they played out of their minds. A few of them really stepped up and played really, really well,” said St. Croix Falls coach Stacie Hoff. “We came out a little flat again, but like I told you, we kind of tend to do that. But we picked it back up and finished. Just amazing.”

In the fifth set, the Saints stayed aggressive despite the deficit and rallied with five consecutive points, taking a 13-11 lead on a kill by Lydia Petersen. Howards Grove rallied to tie with two consecutive kills.

Senior Kelsey Cooper put the Saints ahead with a kill from the middle. As they had done throughout the entire match, Howards Grove set up Olivia Baierl on the left side, but Cooper and Bailey Olson combined on the block that gave the Saints their first girls volleyball championship in school history.

“We know to beat a team like Howards Grove, you’ve got to go big,” senior Lucy Belisle said of the aggressive approach. “We have to be on our A-game and shying away from that, that’s not going to help us. I’d rather take an error trying to do something positive than not giving it your all.”

Cooper finished with 28 kills, Belisle added 16 and Peterson 14. Catherine Olson had 50 assists, and freshman Britta Olson had five aces and 14 digs.

“It was probably one of the most exciting matches I’ve ever been a part of, and I’ve been hard; a part of some pretty exciting matches,” Howards Grove coach Brett Damrow said.

The Saints missed an opportunity to close it out in four sets, letting the five-point lead slip away. St. Croix Falls went up 24-22 on a service error, but Howards Grove answered with four consecutive points, including back-to-back blocks to win it.

In the early going, the Saints bore little resemblance to the team that rolled past Cuba City 3-1 in the semifinals. Howards Grove jumped out to a 16-4 lead, but four consecutive aces by Britta Olson fueled a seven-point run that cut the deficit to 20-13.

“I think that coming back after that first set showed our growth compared to last year,” Cooper said. “Last year, we just shut down after we came out flat. This year, we had a lot of grit and we knew that we could compete with them.”

In the second set, the Saints committed an attack error that allowed Howards Grove within 24-23, but Belisle hammered home the game-winner from the right side.

St. Croix Falls controlled the third set, using a 9-2 run to open a 22-12 lead.

The victory culminated the year-long wait for a rematch for the Saints, whose only other state appearance was a semifinal loss in 2020.

“Last year, like we talked about yesterday in the press conference, a lot of it was that it was our first state championship,” Cooper said. “We were looking around a lot, trying to take it all in. This year, since we’ve been here before, it was more like, we have to take care of business, we know what we have to do and we did it.”

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