Bethel College Volleyball

Season Wrap-Up

The 2009 volleyball team ended the season playing their best volleyball and came away with the KCAC Tournament runner-up plaque. Heading into the season, the Threshers were picked to finish second in the regular season race, but the team had their eyes on a second straight conference championship.

After the first round of play, the Threshers were looking good with an 8-1 record. However, the team had a rough two weeks in the middle of the second round of play, losing 4 of 5 matches. The team finished out KCAC regular season play with a tie for 3rd, and an overall, regular season record of 16-14.

The Threshers entered the KCAC Tournament Championship as the number four seed, facing Ottawa University at home in the quarterfinal round. The team took care of business beating Ottawa in four games (25-19, 25-19, 22-25, 25-15) to move into the semifinal round to play the number one seed Tabor College at Tabor. Despite losing to the Bluejays twice and only able to take 2 games from them during the regular season, the Threshers were confident and were playing their best ball of the season. From the beginning of the match Bethel College took control and never looked back, winning the match in three games (25-19, 25-13, 25-17). This set up the final matchup with Friends University, a team the Threshers split with during the regular season. In game one it looked as if the Threshers were going to control the match again, ending with a dominating 25-12 win. But they couldn’t hold the momentum, losing game two 17-25. Game three was a battle with Bethel coming out on top, 25-21. But that was all the Threshers could get as Friends went on to win the next two games: 16-25, 9-15.

The Threshers lose two seniors in defensive specialist Billye Jerde and right side hitter Christy Weems. Weems was a unanimous 1st team All-KCAC selection, outside hitter Bethany Thiesen and libero Addison Wolf were 2nd team selections, and outside hitter Whitney Hiebner was an honorable mention selection. Hiebner and Weems were both named NAIA Scholar Athletes for their efforts in the classroom as well.

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Bethel College volleyball has a strong tradition and we continue to get players each and every year that are going to help us keep that strong tradition going. Bethel College volleyball is very unique in many ways and we hold a lot of pride in that. We are looking forward to seeing all of the support at our games to help us continue the winning tradition here at Bethel. — Christy Weems