Roots team up one final time in NCA all-star match

Bill Root has a new way to stay in contact with his daughter Brigette.

"He finally learned how to text, so I'll be texting him," said Brigette, who will be a walk on with the Nebraska volleyball program this fall. "It takes him a while, but he gets it done."

But Grand Island Senior High coach Bill Root didn't need a text message to communicate with Brigette on Tuesday night at the Nebraska Coaches Association all-star volleyball match at Lincoln North Star because Brigette was right there on the court.

For the last time, she played setter for her father.

The results weren't exactly what the Roots were hoping for as their Blue team dropped a 25-21, 25-22, 18-25, 21-25, 15-9 decision to the Red team in the annual match.

Now Brigette, who has been doing workouts with the Huskers for the past two and a half weeks, is ready to start her college career.

 "It was really fun," Brigette said of the all-star match. "It was my last game with my dad and we've been with these girls for three days. Our team really had a great time. We practiced hard. It's just too bad it didn't come out the way we wanted.

"You gotta move on. I will really miss playing for him. I've been playing for him my whole life. It will be different.

Bill has certainly enjoyed coaching his daughter as well.

"It's been fun," Bill Root said. "I just commend Brigette for the effort she gives."

Brigette Root had 22 set assists for the North team. She played in the first, third and fifth games. Her former Grand Island teammate Alex Miller, who will play at Missouri-Kansas City this fall, had 16 digs for the Blue team as a libero.

"I think Alex Miller played one of her best games," Bill Root said. "I don't know how many digs she had, but I think both Grand Island kids were outstanding."

Grand Island Central Catholic's Tali Fredrickson had three kills for the Red team while playing as an outside hitter. She also played some as a libero, a position she may play this fall at Wayne State.

"I've never really done that before," Fredrickson said of playing the libero position. "But they needed me there and Jennie (Hutt of Papillion-LaVista) was hitting better so I told coach I needed to be libero instead of hitting."

The Red team had things going the first two games while Bill Root said the Blue struggled with its consistency.

"I thought the first two we had our chances," he said. "We had two or three errors in game one early. Then later in game two we came out of a timeout, missed a serve and had a couple of hitting errors and all of a sudden they were at game point."

But the Blue team put things together in the third game as it took control of the net.

"Our passing kind of fell apart a little bit, but we figured it out," Fredrickson said.

The teams had two days of practices before the match. During that time, Bill Root and his assistant coach Linda Johnson of Meridian had to figure out how to divide the team up. All-Star rules say that six players from a team will start the first game with one player eligible as a substitute in the first game. In the second game, six different players start with a player from the first unit being eligible to play in the second game.

Any combination of players can be used the rest of the match.

"The hardest thing of this is mixing the lineups," coach Root said. "I had 13 great kids and it was a lot of fun. The kids had a lot of fun together, both teams. Our goal was to give the crowd an entertaining match and be sportsmanlike, but all these kids hate to lose."

Bill Root said the coaches were trying to split the squad into two equal units. That was his first goal during practice.

"My second goal was in the third game, you're supposed to put your best kids on the court," he said. "I had a difficult time because everybody was good. They all contributed, all 13 of them."

Hutt and Mollie Lacey of Lincoln Pius X led the Red team with 11 kills each. Ansley's Skylar Rohde had a kill and a solo block while Ord's Kelli Peterson had one kill.

Millard North's Carly Jenson led the Blue team with 11 kills while Minden's Ann Ahrens had nine. Grand Island Northwest's Brittany Asche, who played some as a libero, had two kills for the match.

Blue    21    22    25    25      9
Red     25    25    18    21    15
BLUE (Kills-aces-ace blocks)--Brittany Asche (Grand Island NW) 2-0-0, Jessica Way (Lincoln SW) 0-1-0, Alex Miller (Grand Island) 0-2-0, Ann Ahrens (Minden) 9-1-0, Terra Andreasen (Bellevue East) 7-0-0, Brigette Root (Grand Island) 2-0-0, Shelby Schultz (Cambridge) 7-0-0, Anna Wagner (Lincoln East) 2-2-1, Katelyn Wheeler (Falls City Sacred Heart) 2-0-2, Jena Isaacson (Holdrege) 3-0-1, Carly Jenson (Millard North) 11-1-5, Kelsey Petersen (Kearney) 4-0-3, Chelsea Snyder (Omaha Skutt) 2-0-1.
Set assists--Root 22, Way 16.
RED (Kills-aces-ace blocks)--Skylar Rohde (Ansley) 1-0-1, Elaina Knowles (Omaha Marian) 1-1-1, Jennie Hutt (Papillion-LaVista) 11-0-2, Tali Fredrickson (Grand Island CC) 3-1-1, Leigh Connot (Lincoln Pius X) 1-0-0, Cara Carson (Omaha Gross) 1-0-0, Kelli Peterson (ORD) 1-0-0, Mollie Lacy (Lincoln Pius X) 11-3-0, Erica Beacom (Elkhorn) 3-2-2, Megan Bober (Elmwood-Murdock) 2-1-1, Erica Waggoner (Alma) 0-0-0, Paige Dollison (Omaha Marian) 6-0-2, Michelle Kuester (Norfolk Catholic) 3-0-0.
Set assists--Knowles 21, Carson 15.