Janesville starts title defense with sweep

CEDAR RAPIDS – While it might not be the 'dream team” that won the Class 1A volleyball state championship last season, there's still plenty of pieces left for Janesville to defend its title.

Kendyl Sorge, Gillian Gergen and Shelby Schnurstein each collected 11 kills as third-ranked Janesville swept No. 6 Grand View Christian, 25-17, 25-18, 25-13, in a 1A state quarterfinal Wednesday at the U.S. Cellular Center.

'It's good to get that first one under our belts,” Janesville Coach Shelly Sorenson said. 'Especially for our younger players who had not been playing on the big arena before. And the veterans did a nice job of leading tonight.”

In addition to graduating six seniors from its state championship starting rotation, Sorenson has juggled her lineup all season as injuries have kept at least one starter out of each game. After spending the majority of the season at libero, UNI commit Kendyl Sorge is back in her customary role at outside hitter.

'Finally we have everyone back here,” Sorenson said. 'Good to have her back on the outside...Things seem to be meshing pretty well.”

Janesville (25-11) plays No. 2 Central Lyon (37-3) Thursday 6 p.m. in the 1A semifinal. Janesville swept the Lions in last year's semifinal on its way to the crown.

'Well, whoever wants it will win it,” said Schnurstein, who added 16 digs. 'We've just got to start with the first ball, get that up in the box and just execute.”

Katy Harp had 17 of Janesville's 61 digs, which allowed Janesville to continually turn away scoring opportunities for Grand View Christian.

'We came out strong,” Gergen said. 'We watched film so we knew that they had some pretty good hitters. So we just had to hit around them, hit strong, block them and it all worked out.”

Ashlan Thompson tallied 20 assists for Grand View Christian (28-11), a first-year Des Moines area school that enrolled approximately 230 students from the now-defunct Grandview Park Baptist High School

'It's been a great group to work with,” Grand View Christian Coach Matt Thompson said. 'The girls handled things extremely well as far as, I might call it distractions, things like that. They handled things very well.”