Notre Dame volleyball ready for district tournament

Notre Dame's Morgan LeGrand serves the ball in front of the Bulldogs' student section during their October 23 game against Dexter.

Photo Courtesy of Carrie Trovillion - Freelance Photographer

On Wednesday, the Notre Dame girls volleyball team defeated the Dexter Bearcats three sets to zero at Notre Dame Regional High School.

Dexter and Notre Dame are the one and two seeds in the Class 3 District 1 tournament beginning this week at Dexter High School.

The Bulldogs will go into the tournament with confidence. They finished the last 13 games of the regular season 10-3, including the win over Dexter to close the year. Notre Dame head coach Meredith Brinkmeyer said their confidence is high, but they can’t look past any game or opponent.

“We knew going in Dexter is a good team, and I thought the girls handled this game well, just to kind of get in that mindset of the final stretch of the season. But we can’t say, ‘Okay, we beat them this time so we’re going to beat them next time.’ Let that be our focus,” Brinkmeyer said. “We have to look kind of at this game, there were some areas that we could improve on and just get better for the next game. But, we can't look past our game on Monday night either, which I think the girls have kind of focused on. We're just going to take it game by game.”

Notre Dame has a first-round bye in the district tournament and will play the winner of Saxony Lutheran and Doniphan on Monday at 6:30 p.m.

The Bulldogs defeated the Crusaders 3-0 earlier this season but have not battled with the Dons. Brinkmeyer said no matter the opponent her team will focus on playing Notre Dame volleyball.

“We’re focused on our game and how we play. I thought the girls capitalized in the regular season when we played our most consistent volleyball. More so not letting those errors affect us like they do sometimes, because we can get in really big holes ourselves,” Brinkmeyer said. “I think they did a really good job with that so it’s really just taking that and moving forward. If we play Saxony or Doniphan in the postseason, we’re going to focus on what we can control, and then do the best we can.”

Should Notre Dame and Dexter each win their semifinal, the teams will meet again on Tuesday at 6 p.m.