Defending Class 5A champ Pleasant Valley wins its state volleyball quarterfinal

CORALVILLE — One of the Pleasant Valley student section chants turned out to be inaccurate. The other was premature.

But not by a whole lot.

“Sweep! Sweep! Sweep! Sweep!” was the wrong one. It took four games for the Spartans to beat Waukee Northwest in a Monday Class 5A state volleyball tournament quarterfinal at Xtream Arena.

Singing “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” was on target, though. PV did win, 25-19, 25-18, 24-26, 25-18.

“We knew coming into state that it wasn’t going to be an easy sweep every single time,” said Pleasant Valley setter Siena Roethler. “Sometimes you are going to have slumps. We came out ready the fourth set. We had to deal with it.”

PV (28-6) is the defending champion and ranked third. It draws 10th-ranked West Des Moines Valley in Wednesday morning’s semifinals.

The Spartans never seemed seriously threatened, though the spread in all of the games never was huge. PV had a 23-20 lead in the third set, setting up the aforementioned student section chants, but Northwest (28-13) came storming back to win six of the final seven points to extend the match.

“Waukee (Northwest) is a great team and showed why they’re here,” Pleasant Valley Coach Amber Hall said. “It’s never an easy game, no matter what the circumstances. It was just an opportunity for us to reset, regroup and just kind of start fresh. That’s why you play the game. You never know what can happen. You just try to take it one set at a time.”

PV is a very tall team, with 6-foot-5 senior Izzy Van De Wiele (a Western Kentucky commit), 6-1 Halle Vice (a Marquette basketball recruit) and Chloe Cline and 6-foot Isabelle Kramer in the starting lineup. Vice had a team-best 18 kills, followed by 15 from outside hitter Emily Goodpaster, who’s only 5-8 but can really jump.

Roethler had 47 assists. Katrina Pelds had 12 kills and 39 assists for Northwest.

“I’m really happy with how our team played today,” Vice said. “I feel like everyone was contributing in sets 1 and 2. Set 3 was kind of rough, but I think we came back and played well. I just think we got a little too comfortable there.”

Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com