Kevin Morales/Daily Register
Madison Edgewood's Paige Kuypers (9) and Brittany Hermann (1) celebrate after Kuypers landed a kill during the first game of the Crusaders 3-1 win over Portage in Saturday's WIAA Division 2 Monona Grove regional volleyball championship.

MONONA - It seemed to be happening in slow motion, and there was nothing Joann Armson or her Portage volleyball team could do about it.

"It's just kind of like watching a balloon lose its air really slowly," Armson said. "This is such a head game it's just simply amazing."

Portage's volleyball team won an emotional first set but Madison Edgewood seized control from there and won the next three to earn the WIAA Division 2 Monona Grove regional crown with a 3-1 (25-27, 25-10, 25-16, 25-9) win on Saturday at Monona Grove High School.

MacKenzie Ziegler landed a match-high 19 kills but the Crusaders regrouped after the first game to dominate behind a balanced offensive attack and serving that handcuffed the Warriors.

Edgewood junior setter Olivia Dittman dished 38 saves while junior Ashley Ring had 13 kills and classmate Paige Kuypers added 12. Dittman and Ring each had seven aces.

"We just got down by a couple points and we let it get to us," Ziegler said. "Everything out there was all mental. ... we shut down."

The tide began to turn early in the second set when Ring served for five straight points and a kill gave the Crusaders a 7-2 lead. The Warriors got to within two at 8-6 but Madison Edgewood won 17 of the next 22 points. Crusaders junior Mackenzie Reece landed six kills in that pivotal stretch.

The Crusaders got another big lift from its front row in game three. Tied at 9, Reece and Kaitlyn Tessmer combined to block Ziegler and Ring landed aces on three of her next four serves as the Crusaders took a 16-9 lead. Portage cut that to 16-14 on a Crusaders error but Edgewood won nine of the next 11 points and won the set on a Ring kill.

"After our passing picked up a little we started incorporating all of our front row; middles and right sides and left sides equally and it really picked up from there," Kuypers said.

Madison Edgewood coach Steve Bleier said the key for his team was just settling down after the first-set loss, a point he addressed in the team's huddle prior to the second set.

"I could either go with the 'stern talk' or I could go with the 'let's breathe and refocus talk' and I decided to go with the second one," said Bleier, whose team committed 17 errors in the first-game loss. "That's a lot of points to give away in a game. So we talked about that and we talked about keeping the errors on their side. ... Just kind of take deep breaths, refocus and come back."

It was a disappointing loss for the fourth-seeded Warriors, who beat top-seed Lodi in five games on Thursday night to advance to the regional final. Armson said she felt like this was the team that would have Portage back in sectional play for the first time since 1996.

"Absolutely, I really did," she said. "I thought we've got all the make-up and the things that we had to do in order to get us over the hump. Tonight wasn't our night. And, you know, it's great winning and doing all those things, but when you lose you've got to accept that tonight wasn't our night."

MADISON EDGEWOOD 3, PORTAGE 1

Portage ..................................27 10 16 9

Madison Edgewood ..............25 25 25 25

PORTAGE (leaders): Kills - Ziegler 19. Blocks - Considine 6. Digs - Jacobs 25. Aces - Ziegler 2. Assists - Drew 19.

MADISON EDGEWOOD: Kills - Ring 13. Blocks - Reese 3. Digs - Kuypers, Dittmann 8. Aces - Dittmann, Ring 7. Assists - Dittmann 38.

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