Cold was exactly what the Bobcats were against the Hawkettes, however, as Ankeny rolled to an easy three-set sweep to advance to the regional finals, 25-11, 25-12, 25-7.

Given their first-round matchup against Cedar Rapids Washington wasn’t too much of a task to prepare for, Marshalltown had been working on what Ankeny does essentially since the end of the regular season, but head coach Chris Brees said it was like the girls forgot everything they worked on in practice.

“We knew exactly what they were going to do, we didn’t respond, we chose to execute things that weren’t going to work against them,” Brees said. “When you put that effort against a very good, ranked team that should be at state that’s kind of the outcome that you are going to get.”

After going down 25-11 in the first set, the Bobcats (13-21) could erase some of those bad feelings with a good start to the second set, but the Hawkettes (29-12) came out firing and worked up a 9-0 lead before Marshalltown knew what hit them.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON - Marshalltown freshman Autumn Finch (9) attempts to tip the ball over the block of Ankeny defenders Malea Daugherty, left, and Sara McCullough (17) during the second set of the Bobcats’ loss to the Hawkettes on Tuesday.

“I’m a little disappointed with how we responded to things we’ve practiced for the last two weeks knowing that we would most likely be playing Ankeny,” Brees said. “I’m just disappointed with how we responded to things that we put in place ourselves at the most successful position we could be.”

Five girls had at least five kills for Ankeny, led by McKenna Scheib with nine and Isabelle Vacek and Sara McCullough with seven each. Marshalltown had just 13 total kills, with Gabby Himes leading the way with four and Sophie Younkin chipping in three.

Brees said when the going gets tough the team just hasn’t had anyone to fall back on other than setter Madi Finch, who finished with 11 assists in the final game.

“Something we have been lacking the whole season is a leader,” he said. “Madi Finch is being a vocal leader and she is doing all she can to get to balls and set it, I don’t think she gets enough credit for the balls that she puts up for people to hit, but out of the back row we had zero leadership tonight and that’s just a disappointing thing because we are very talented back there. That’s been the nature of the beast all season, finding someone to step up. I guess in hindsight that’s a coaching error, we thought we’d come in pretty sound defensively and the serve-receive would be sound but we are not.”

Finch also led the team in digs with 11 and went 7-for-7 in service. Alyvia Chadderdon followed with 10 digs and Erica Johnson had eight.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

The Bobcats struggled to handle the Hawkette serves all night, as Ankeny finished with 11 aces, but Brees said there wasn’t anything special to their serves.

“They weren’t serving at us that aggressive, they had one server that was pretty aggressive but the rest of them were just flat, lollipop serves that we weren’t getting our platforms to, we weren’t reading it off their hand,” he said. “That’s how we warmed up too, we were getting on the court slow, getting through our ball handling slow, and at some point as a coach you leave that in the hands in the girls. By this time of the year we should be responding quicker than that.”

Ankeny moves on to the 5A Region 4 finals where it will face Ames, who beat Southeast Polk in five sets in the other semifinal.

Though the year ends on a disappointing note, the good thing is most of the team is back next season. Freshmen Sophie Younkin, Autumn Finch and Hayden Oetker all got some important experience this season, and Madi Finch and Johnson head a strong group of girls who will be back for their senior year.

Brees said there needs to be a commitment to getting better well before the start of next season, however, and any success they will experience in 2019 will be because of work done now in the offseason.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

“That’s not just playing volleyball, if you’re playing another sport, if you’re in the weight room that’s good,” he said. “We have some kids that it took six weeks just to get them ready to play because they chose not to work in the offseason. I want them to play basketball, I want them to go out for track, I want them to play all those other sports and I want them to play club ball.

“We are playing teams that play all year round, every one of their kids are up there. We are playing teams that have D-I recruits and playing teams with national team players on their team. You can’t in six weeks think you are going to step out and beat a team if you do nothing in the offseason.”