Grabau sisters help Starfires end nearly two-decade drought

WOODBURN — Churubusco fought off one match point. And then another. And then another.
Coach Ashley Buckingham decided not to use the one timeout she had left. Her Starfires weren’t nervous.
On the next point, they sent the ball to the senior middle hitter who had led their balanced attack all day. Kylie Grabau took the set from her sister Julia, slammed the biggest kill of her career past Alyssa Anderson, turned and let out a scream of celebration.
The three seniors on the floor — Kylea Pierce, Cindy In’t Groen and Kylie Grabau — threw their arms in the air before being mobbed by the rest of the squad. The 18-year drought was over.
“It felt amazing,” said Pierce, the libero, who finished with 13 digs. “That’s all I can say. It’s about time.”
That final kill was the exclamation point on South Adams’ first volleyball sectional title since 1997 as they defeated the Eagles 25-17, 21-25, 25-18, 25-21 in the championship match Saturday at Woodlan.
“It wasn’t even frustrating at all,” said Pierce of the late Churubusco run that closed the gap to 24-21. “We were ahead … and it was like, ‘We’ve got this, we can do this, we’re fine. We need one point, and it’s ours.’
“So I just told them, ‘Stay calm, stay calm. Do what we know how to do.’ And we did it.”
While the elder Grabau finished the fourth set, it was the younger who staked the Starfires (22-11) to a lead they would never relinquish.
Building off of the momentum of a 7-0 run late in the third set, sophomore Julia Grabau stepped behind the service line and ripped an ace off the arms of Churubusco’s Mallory Pearson to open the fourth. Her second serve zipped down the right sideline untouched for another ace. Her third caromed off of Pearson again.
Three serves, three aces, 3-0 South Adams.
It proved too much for the Eagles (18-15) to overcome.
“We’re not only three points behind, but now mentally they’re thinking, ‘Oh, here we go, OK, now we have a hole to get out of,’” said Churubusco coach Suzanne Taylor, whose team has never won a sectional title. “It is hard to come out in the fourth set 0-3. I think we were working, working, working to get back out of that hole. At one point we were out of it and we had started to come back, but it was just too late.”
That came with a 5-0 run that pulled them within a point at 18-17, but an In’t Groen kill kept SAHS in front. Moments later Julia Grabau served the Starfires to a five-point run of their own that put them within one of the title.
The victory Saturday evening followed South Adams’ 25-19, 25-13, 20-25, 25-21 triumph earlier in the day over the Bluffton Tigers. It earned them a date against ninth-ranked Westview, which swept Bremen to win the sectional title at Central Noble.
The teams will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Topeka, with the winner to advance to the Bremen semi-state.
The Starfires and Churubusco traded the first two games, with the former nabbing a 7-2 lead in the first and the latter going up 7-1 in the second. Game three went back-and-forth with neither team leading by more than two points until Morgan Alberson notched one of her six kills and then took the serve.
The junior outside hitter recorded an ace as she sparked a seven-point run that also included kills from Addie Wanner, Julia Grabau and In’t Groen.
“Whoever got the big run was going to win the game,” said Buckingham. “We were able to stick with it, and then Morgan pulled out a great service effort there and our girls turned around and protected her and hit. That made all the difference.”
Julia Grabau then started the fourth set with her run of aces that eventually led to her sister’s match-winning kill.
The Starfires’ senior attackers paced the offense as Kylie Grabau recorded a team-best 12 kills and In’t Groen followed with 10. (Kylie Grabau also led the way with 11 kills against Bluffton.)
Madi Wurster and Wanner each had nine kills in the finals, and Alberson notched six.
Julia Grabau set them up with 43 assists.
“They just played great. And they had to show up for three matches, and play well for three matches consistently,” said Buckingham, whose team knocked off the host Warriors in the opening round of the tournament Thursday. “They did it, and I’m very proud of them.”