There was a small bump along the way, but the Packers did advance to the quarterfinals of the Section 1AAA volleyball tournament.

Thursday, October 28, 1999

There was a small bump along the way, but the Packers did advance to the quarterfinals of the Section 1AAA volleyball tournament.

Austin breezed through the first two games against the Waseca Blue Jays, 15-5, 15-4, before dropping Game Three 15-4. They again took command in Game Four winning it 15-5. The winning point coming on a third hit bump by Lauren Feller to the open court after she had made a great dig near the seats earlier in the rally.

"We were a little bit sloppy there," Feller said, "but it is still good to win. The key tonight is we played really well as a team. When we get on a roll, we stay on a roll. We let up our intensity in game three. We have to try not to do that."

Earlier this year, the Packers defeated the Blue Jays 15-2, 15-6, 15-9 at Austin. In that match, Waseca was missing the powerful presence of 6-foot, 1-inch senior middle hitter Elizabeth Klukas. She was healthy Wednesday and had seven kills and three ace blocks in the match.

Still Austin whipped through Game One, running out to a 8-1 lead through the first service rotation. Austin got kills and blocks from all over the place. Co-captains Brooke Gentzler and Erin Coleman led the way along with Feller. Waseca crept back to 8-4, but then Austin closed out the game with two service points from Gentzler, four from Coleman, and the last from Kellie Grimley.

Gentzler had 16 kills on the night, Feller 15 and Coleman 13. They were set up by Gina Golberg with 28 set assists and Grimley with 24.

It was the sixth member of the Austin starting line up, Andrea Lindgren, making the big serves in Game Two. Austin was down 1-3 when she took the serve. Austin then reeled off seven straight points with Lindgren smashing three of her seven aces on the night during the stretch.

"My serving was on tonight," Lindgren said. "It was one of my better service games of the season. It just comes on sometimes."

"She had some awesome serves," Becker said. "They were excellent."

Feller closed out the game with the last four service points. She had one ace and Gentzler scored twice with two kills.

Austin coach Andrea Becker substituted in her reserves in Game Four but no one combination seemed to work and the Blue Jays had hope.

"The team wasn’t clicking together," Becker said. "After Game Three I told the team they needed to give 100 percent or you are going to get taken out, and they did a good job of turning themselves around."

Austin was up only 3-1 through the first five servers in the rotation in the final game. Lindgren then again came through on the serve with three straight aces to put the Packers up 6-1. Waseca never got closer then four the rest of the way.

The No. 8 seed Packers (15-11-2) now travel to Lakeville (19-6) on Friday to meet up with the top seeded Panthers at 7 p.m. Lakeville is also the sixth-ranked team in the state.

"We need to dream big to keep on advancing," Becker said.