Devils fall to No. 1 Calumet in district final

By JASON JUNO

sports@yourdailyglobe.com

CALUMET — Ironwood’s season has ended at the hands of some of the best volleyball teams in the Upper Peninsula recently.

Last year, Forest Park made it to the Division 4 state semifinal while only losing two postseason sets along the way, with one of them coming against the Red Devils.

This year, Calumet, which was ranked No. 1 in the U.P. poll all year, beat Ironwood 25-12, 25-15, 25-18 in Friday night’s MHSAA Division 3 District 65 final. The Copper Kings have won 18 district championships since the turn of the century, including the last 12.

“They have the potential to go downstate,” Ironwood coach Lisa Fechter said. “The teams that we lost to, that have knocked us out, have gone very far. A couple of our seniors (Bree Delich and Hanna Vaughn) were on that team four years ago when we went to quarterfinals. They’ve played tough volleyball their whole careers and I’m proud of them for that.”

The Red Devils made Calumet work for it, but the Copper Kings proved to be a tough challenge at the net, like they are for many teams.

“They have six players on the floor at all times that can just hammer the ball,” Fechter said. “They just put it down.”

Ironwood fell behind 9-1 in the first set before settling in. They played their best in the final set when Calumet called a timeout as Ironwood closed in at 18-13.

“I think we were super nervous at the beginning,” Fechter said. “We held our own after that point. If you look at the scores of their district game earlier this week, we scored more points than that team.

“We had some big moments. They called timeout, maybe they were a little bit worried there towards the end of that third set … That was kind of exciting, we forced them to call timeout. We were serving tough, we had Bree (Delich) behind the line, she served a few good points, and served them tough.”

Audra Pawlak led the Devils with seven kills and Delich finished with six kills, three aces and six digs. Vaughn led Ironwood with 19 digs, Olivia Vandenburg had 15 and Kiaya Graser tallied 14 assists and 10 digs.

Calumet coach Kate Bonacorsi said she was proud of her team for how it has performed. Their strong play continued into Friday’s district final.

“We were serving tough,” she said. “When we got balls that they had to send over out of system, like free balls, we were able to convert those into points. Defensively I thought we played really well and took care of the balls that we needed to turn around and score with.”

West-PAC Player of the Year Allie Bjorn led Calumet with 18 kills and First Team selection Jackie Kiilunen had 12.

You can count on one hand how many sets the Copper Kings lost to U.P. teams this season.

Hancock got them for one, 26-24, and the second-ranked big-school team, Kingsford, won a set in their first meeting and all three in their second. Calumet swept Forest Park, ranked first in Division 4, and they also won in three over Marquette, Hancock, West Iron County and Jeffers among others.

Calumet beat Kingsford in the first meeting, but not the second, which was when one of their top hitters, West-PAC First Team selection Maddie Torola, went down with an injury. They found out Friday she is out for the rest of the season.

Calumet (29-4-2) swept Manistique 25-18, 25-18, 25-5 in Tuesday night’s regional semifinal and will play Traverse City St. Francis in the final Thursday night at St. Ignace.

TC St. Francis comes in with a 32-12-3 record after sweeping Indian River Inland Lakes in its regional semifinal Tuesday night.

In Division 2, Kingsford fell to Kingsley in five sets, 17-25, 22-25, 27-25, 25-23, 16-14.