The New London Bulldog Invite officially opened up the volleyball season for a number of area teams.
The five-team tournament featured the likes of Green Bay East, Manawa, Waupaca and the top two finishers Weyauwega-Fremont and the host Bulldogs. While the home team put on a strong showing, it was Weyauwega-Fremont coming out on top victorious, taking both sets in the final match by a 25-23 final.
“This is a really young group of kids,” Weyauwega-Fremont head coach Rena Tomaszewski said of her team. “I’m pretty proud of what they did today, but I said don’t get your confidence level too high because all these teams here are going to get better after today. That’s what these early season tournaments are for.”
Weyauwega-Fremont only dropped one set in the tournament.
It may be a team without much experience on the volleyball court, but they’re also one that isn’t intimidated easily.
“Yesterday and last week, they were thinking this will be a really tough tournament because you’ve got Division 2 schools and they knew they had their work cut out for them,” Tomaszewski said. “Then they just started to play and their confidence kept going up. They’re good listeners.”
New London hadn’t lost heading into their final match against the Indians and though end results weren’t what the Bulldogs were hoping for, coach Kristin Gustafson says there are plenty of positives to take away.
“I thought they did awesome today,” she said. “We had phenomenal serving. I think the biggest thing we need to do is make sure we’re communicating at all times, we’re talking to each other, get our bench talking a little bit more too, but for the most part I’m very impressed with what we did in our first tournament.”
The tournament is only the beginning for New London, who have hopes of finishing near the top of the Bay Conference. They’ll be tested again this weekend in a tournament in Green Bay.
“There’ll be some bigger teams, so I’m hoping this was an opener for all that,” Gustafson said. I hope it kind of gets them geared up for that.”
The Bulldogs are also scheduled to play in another early season tournament in Freedom on Monday.
