Iowa City Liberty volleyball sets itself up to possibly make amends with return to state

IOWA CITY — Before it could truly make amends, it had to win Tuesday night. Which it did, knocking off Cedar Rapids Prairie in three straight sets for a Class 5A regional championship.

So now Iowa City Liberty’s volleyball team can officially go about the process of making up for its shocking first-round exit at last year’s state volleyball tournament.

The Lightning were top-seeded and top-ranked and unceremoniously fell to Johnston. It’s another suburban Des Moines first-round opponent this time around for again the top-ranked and top-seeded Lighting.

That’s Urbandale, at noon Monday at Xtream Arena in Coralville.

“Especially with everything that happened last year, I think we had the extra grit to want to get back,” said senior outside-middle hitter Cassidy Hartman. “I mean, we knew we could do it (tonight). We had to stay calm, we had to play our game, and we did it.”

This 25-16, 25-13, 25-18 win was about as routine as you’ll see and took just a smidgen over an hour. Prairie (14-22) didn’t lead at all in the first set, led only 1-0 on McKenna Murray’s kill that began the second set, then had brief leads of 2-1 and 3-2 on kills from Murray and teammate Jacey Miller.

The rest of this match was, as the commercial says all about Liberty, Liberty, Liberty ... Liberty.

Hartman and Lilah VanScoyoc did damage at the net with team-high kill numbers of 13 and 12, respectively. Shelby Kimm added nine.

Asta Hildebrand had a Lightning-high 23 assists, with Mariah Rollins adding 11.

“I think going into the postseason we had to take things step by step, game by game, point by point,” Kimm said. “We can’t just look ahead to the state championship. We don’t want to, like, jinx ourselves, I guess. We just have to compete every point, every play.”

This is the fourth straight state tournament appearance for Liberty, which takes a 30-8 record to it this time around.

“It’s impossible to take (qualifying for state) for granted. Every single time is special,” said Liberty Coach Allie Kelly. “I think throughout the season our girls have just gotten more steady if they make mistakes or the other team scores big points. They just (play) with each other, they trust each other and they move on to the next point. These guys have matured a lot. I just think the trust, the composure has really come through.”

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