The Bolts jumped out to an 8-4 lead over the No. 5 Redhawks to start the first set, but rather than call a timeout North Tama head coach Channing Halstead decided to trust her girls would get it right.

The Redhawks did so in a big way, ripping off a 7-0 run to take the lead at 11-8 and then eventually finishing off the set with a 25-14 victory. North Tama would replicate that score twice more in the second and third sets to earn a sweep win over Baxter, 25-14, 25-14, 25-14.

“It was a little slow start but I wasn’t too worried, I could tell that a lot of our mistakes to start off with were kind of nerves and not being in a game situation,” Halstead said. “Just the missed serves and hitting errors and missed connections, that’s kind of what happens when you don’t play for a while.”

What got the Redhawks (27-6) back on track was some tough serving by sophomore Madison Stoneking, who served for most of the 7-0 run in the first.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON - North Tama Carlie Gorder (center) celebrates with teammates Katie Kopriva (10) and Grace Thorsen (9) after scoring a kill in the third set of the Redhawks’ three-set sweep of Baxter in the Class 1A Region 3 quarterfinals on Monday in Traer.

“Madison came in and had a few aces, and that’s her job,” Halstead said. “I always tell her that her goal is to be back there for three to five points at least, and that’s her role as a server. If she goes back there and is one and done that’s a huge sub that I can miss out on, but she got us going in that first set and we needed that.”

Stoneking finished the night with two aces on 11-for-15 serving.

Once North Tama took the first set over the Bolts (12-14), the usual explosive offense took over. Junior Katie Kopriva really got going in the second set, as she went from just two kills in the opening game to a team-high 10 kills 18-for-19 hitting line to finish the match.

“Our passing wasn’t really good off the bat so it was hard to get any of our hitters going, but into the second and third sets we got our passes going and that made our hitters more available,” Kopriva said of how the offense woke up.

Senior Karly Jans followed just behind Kopriva with nine kills, and she had a team-high 28 attack attempts. Jans had trouble to start the match against the size of some of the Baxter defenders, particularly the 6-foot-3 Amber Weltha, but once she figured out the block Jans found a lot more success.

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“Sometimes they would block, sometimes they wouldn’t block, sometimes they’d block one, sometimes they’d block two and I felt like our sets were a little short and a little high, so that’s something they will definitely see in video tomorrow when we go over it,” Halstead said. “I kind of thought we should give the ball to Katie a little more early on, just because she gets us going every once in a while, but Jans had a few nice swings.”

Kopriva said she and the other hitters actually rely on players in the back to communicate which way blocks are being set up, which helps them find better areas to attack.

“They tell us where to hit it if they have one or two blockers up so our communication really helps there,” she said.

Behind the usual attackers in Kopriva and Jans were junior Carlie Gorder and sophomore Abby DeBoef, who each had five kills. Halstead said it’s important for those other girls to get involved, particularly Gorder because of the change in attack she brings with her slide.

“Carlie Gorder had a good game tonight and we need her to do that because she does that to us in practice all the time and we are going to need her down the road,” Halstead said. “It was a good night for her to get some confidence going too.”

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Kopriva agreed with her coach that it’s important to get some of the other girls going on offense, because that helps open up some lanes for her and Jans.

“That is extremely helpful, they know that Karly and I are pretty decent attackers and they will be camping out on us, so we have to have other hitters ready to go and put the ball down,” she said.

Defensively the Redhawk back line wasn’t challenged often, but when it was it got the job done. Katie Kopriva led the team in digs with nine while junior libero Takoa Kopriva finished with seven, and those two made up half of North Tama’s 32 total digs.

While Takoa didn’t have the lead in digs, most of the ones she reached were great plays and Halstead said she is one of the best assets to have on the court.

“Everybody wishes they had a Takoa, she’s our rock,” Halstead said. “We’ve been harping on serve-receive this week quite a bit and she put it on tonight. That’s what we need her to do, without her we couldn’t do anything that we try to do.”

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Weltha led the Bolts on offense with six kills, and Baxter as a team had just 12 total kills on the night.

Katie Kopriva didn’t just lead the team in kills and digs, she also tied for the team lead in aces with four along with Jans, and the two combined to go 28-for-28 in service.

Despite the team having 13 total aces and going 65-for-74 behind the line, Halstead said they can still do better.

“I still don’t feel like we served like I wanted us to but that will come, that’s something that comes with game situation too and it’s hard to mimic,” she said. “We are a usually pretty aggressive serving team, and when that doesn’t work the rest of it doesn’t work as well.”

The Redhawks will have to be on top of their games in the regional semifinals, as they will host No. 11 Gladbrook-Reinbeck in Traer on Thursday at 7 p.m.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

North Tama and G-R have met three times this season with the Redhawks prevailing in all three showdowns, but two of those matches went the full allotment of sets, including a five-set thriller in Traer less than two weeks ago.

Halstead said this time around if her girls can avoid making mistakes, they should walk away with a fourth-straight win over the Rebels and a second-straight trip to the regional finals.

“We gave them 51 points total last time we played them, so that’s two sets worth we gave them just in our errors,” she said. “Obviously we know if we play clean on our side of the net that’s going to help, but I am confident that they have to beat us. We aren’t going to change much of our game, we know what they are going to do.”

Katie Kopriva said after a trip to the state tournament last year, the girls are itching to get back to the U.S. Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids and they don’t care who stands in their way.

“It’s really exciting this year because we know that we are even better than last year and we are going to fight hard until the end,” she said. “We are going to be pretty confident going into Thursday. We know what our goal is and we are going to stick to it.”