Comets fall short of state against No. 1-ranked Saints

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

CEDAR RAPIDS — To go deep into the postseason, you need an ace who can deliver some nasty stuff.

We’re not just talking about baseball, but volleyball as well.

After the No. 1-ranked Xavier Saints fell behind an upstart Charles City Comets team displaying a loose confidence of a spoiler during the first set of Tuesday’s Class 4A-Region 1 volleyball championship, Xavier senior Libby Fandel stepped to the service line.

The Comets had taken a 4-1 lead on a hitting kill by senior Mya Rimrod assisted by junior Sofia Parrott, and were up 6-2 before Fandel unleashed a series of jump-serve offerings with the type of velocity and drop-off-the-end-of-the-table action that would make Hall of Fame pitcher Bruce Sutter proud.

On three-straight occasions, Charles City’s back line stepped clear of these bewitched serves, figuring they would sail too long for side-outs only to have them dip just inside the end line with the line judge pointing at the landing spots as if to red-flag repeated laws of physics violations.

Nine-straight dipsy-do service points by Fandel put the Saints up 11-6. After the Comets eventually broke Fandel’s serve, they went on a rally of their own and tied it at 16-16 on Addyson Vance’s service ace. Xavier regained the lead and pulled ahead 23-19 before a blocking kill by Comet junior Evelyn Mayhew drew the Comets within 1 (23-22).

In essence, that’s as close as Charles City got for the rest of the match as Fandel later returned to the service line and had one of her hard-sinkers bumped over the net where Carley Jonker was waiting for the easy kill to close the set (25-22).

Fandel’s service continued to be a menace for the Comets for the rest of the match as her ace gave the Saints a 14-4 lead in the second set on way to winning it 25-10, and another one of her aces put her team up 11-3 in the third set, which ended 25-12 to close out the match.

“She has one of the best top-spins serves I’ve ever seen,” Charles City coach Sue Hoefer said of Fandel. “We were able to make some adjustments later in the match, but it wasn’t enough.”

The regional championship win improved the Saints’ overall record to 28-4 and advanced them to the State Volleyball Championships for the ninth season in a row. During the run, the Saints emerged as state champs in 2020 and 2022.

As the No. 1-seed, Xavier will face Sergeant Bluff-Luton in the Class 4A quarterfinals, Monday (Nov. 4) at 4 p.m. at Xtream Arena in Coralville. The semifinals will be the following Wednesday; the finals will be at 12:15 p.m. the following Thursday.

Charles City, which got 22 assists and three blocks from Parrott, seven kills by Rimrod and 10 digs from senior Anya Ruzicka, ended the season with an overall record of 22-10.

“It was a great season for us,” Hoefer said of her Comets, who claimed the final Northeast Iowa Conference league title while going undefeated in conference games (4-0) during the regular season.

“The girls worked hard and we were able to get within one match of getting down to state.”

Several Comets recently received All-NEIC honors due to their efforts this season.

First-teamers include Rimrod, who led the team in kills (244) and was second on the team in digs (241); Parrott, who led the team in assists (714); and libero Ruzicka, who led the team in digs (362) and co-led the team in service aces (30).

Second-teamers include junior middle hitter Evelyn Mayhew, who led the team in blocks (41); and senior middle hitter Jadyn Van Horn, who had 175 kills and 39 blocks her final season with the Comets.

Van Horn was also named Academic All-State by the Iowa Girls’ Coaches Association. Criteria to attain such an uncommon distinction include an ACT composite score of at least 27, a cumulative grade-point average of at least 3.75, and a class ranking in the top 10 to 15 percent — Van Horn is perched near the top if not at the top of Charles City’s pending 2025 graduating class.