Red Hawks turn aside Poynette, end season against Viroqua

Though wins weren’t always the easiest to come by for the Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau volleyball team during this first season under new head coach Marc Baures, the Red Hawks got to send out their seniors with a playoff victory in their final home match of 2025.

Following a challenging run through Coulee play, G-E-T earned a measure of catharsis in the opening round of postseason play by brushing aside Poynette in four sets. Though the Red Hawks were unable to follow that up with a win against conference foe Viroqua in the regional semifinals, their coach expressed pride in the way his team battled all throughout the fall campaign.

“I’m extremely proud of my girls and how hard they played all year,” Baures said. “Transition years are tough for players and having a different coach can be a difficult adjustment. We improved as a team and learned a lot about our abilities. My expectations for next year have been raised significantly based on what I saw this year.”

G-E-T 3 Poynette 1

Improvement was evident for the Red Hawks as the season went along, even if they didn’t always have the wins to show it while competing in a tough Coulee Conference. But in their final home match of the season and on the pressure-packed playoff stage, G-E-T showed how much they’ve grown.

The eighth-seeded Red Hawks battled past ninth-seeded Poynette in four sets last Tuesday in Galesville, winning the first two and bouncing back emphatically after dropping the third.

Before a boisterous home crowd, G-E-T raced out to a 2-0 lead by starting both of the opening sets strong and winning them 25-15 and 25-19. Even after dropping the third to the Pumas 25-23 (coming up short after a late push), the Red Hawks looked unrattled in the fourth and closed out the match by winning that final set 25-17.

“It cures a lot of pain for the year,” Baures said. “I liked that the setters responded. We identified some things that we wanted to do. We had a plan for serving. We executed. We had a plan for hitting. We did a good job moving on the blocking. Not a lot of stuff blocks but got a ton of blocks up.

“We moved on defense. We actually started talking. It was a good night for us.”

G-E-T stat leaders included Rylynn Simmons with 11 kills and 21 digs, Clara Schulze with 21 digs, Amelia Walz with 22 assists, Taryn Leighty with six aces and Kennedy Scow with two blocks.

Viroqua 3 G-E-T 0

A third loss to Viroqua in 2025 officially closed the books on Red Hawk volleyball for the season.

The top-seeded Blackhawks swept their conference foes 25-22, 25-22, 25-14 this past Thursday in Viroqua. Simmons and McKenna Schindler each had five kills for G-E-T, Schulze added 11 digs and Leighty doled out nine assists.

The Red Hawks previously lost in four sets to Viroqua on the road in September and were swept by the Blackhawks at home earlier this month.

With that loss, G-E-T ends the season with a 10-21 record.