CORALVILLE ― Coach Michele Quick and Ankeny Christian started the 2026 state volleyball tournament the way they left it in 2024.
The Eagles (38-2) beat West Monona 25-16, 25-19, 25-19 on Nov. 3 to advance to the Class 1A semifinals.
Ankeny Christian missed the state tournament a season ago, and 1A teams got a break from seeing Eagles consistently dominate the field.
“It’s pretty exciting to be back,” Quick said. “We knew we had a lot of potential this year, and we had a lot of pieces that we needed as far as our offense, and we have some great defense behind our offense as well. So it’s pretty exciting. We have some new girls that haven’t been here before, but we definitely have some experienced girls too.”
After a season of regrouping, a school-record 35 regular-season wins, a 7-0 conference mark and five regular-season tournament wins, the Eagles are primed to get a fourth state title in five seasons.
The Eagles put together an impressive regular-season resume with wins over North Polk, Aplington-Parkersburg, Denver and Grundy Center. The only losses all season were against 5A Ankeny and 3A Roland-Story, two teams that also qualified for the state tournament.
West Monona battled in the early parts of each set Tuesday night. In the first set, Breeze Bentz kept Ankeny Christian afloat. Her kill from the right side made the score 14-10. A play later another kill from Bentz gave the Eagles a five-point cushion.
The second set was an even stronger fight from the Spartans, and Ankeny Christian didn’t pull away until late in the game. Havanna Dolbeare added to her kill total and gave the Eagles the 25-19 win.
In the third set, West Monona got within two, 15-13, but the more disciplined Ankeny Christian team used its service game and attacking to win and end the night.
“I feel like we just focus on the next point,” Dolbeare said. “We don’t think about all the mistakes we made in the past. We let those go, and we just focus on the next point, and we lock in from there.”
Dolbeare and Bentz combined for 32 kills, and setter Gabbie Quick assisted 30 times in the win.
Dani Craighead and Gabbie Quick are freshman starters. Dolbeare and Karmen Lamberts are sophomore starters. Bentz is a junior, as is fellow starter Liv Nehring. Libero Katelyn Weathers is the only senior starter.
“We are just such an exciting group,” Weathers said. “We have fun, and right now we are just taking everything one point at a time. It’s really, really important that we come out strong, and even if we don’t and we are stuck in a rut, we want to come out and stay high.”
Michele Quick is now 10-0 in state tournament competition since 2022, and with two more wins she will have her fourth 1A state title since arriving at the school in 2018.
“I think the newness and the youngness is what’s different,” Michele Quick said. “Putting the pieces together in the past, we had those girls together since freshman year. Whenever you kind of combine a lot of different varieties, you never know what it’s going to look like.”
Preston Zbroszczyk covers prep sports for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Contact him at PSZbroszczyk@registermedia.comor Twitter @PrestZbroszczyk
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Ankeny Christian returns to state volleyball tournament with a victory
Discover more from NAIRAVOICE.COM.NG
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
