​Nov. 12—ST. PAUL — Throughout this season, the Dover-Eyota volleyball team celebrated a handful of program “firsts.”These milestones included receiving votes and earning a spot in the state rankings for the first time, capturing the section title in the Eagles’ first Section 1, Class 2A championship match appearance and securing their first-ever trip to the state tournament.The Eagles’ quest for the school’s first volleyball state championship title came up short, falling 25-22, 25-21, 25-19 to No. 4 seed New London-Spicer in the Class 2A state quarterfinals at Grand Casino Arena on Thursday, but that doesn’t make the journey any less special.A combination of the hectic environment at GCA and NL-S’s relentless effort proved too much for the Eagles.”I thought it was kind of hard to play in this environment for the first time with two games going on, four big student sections, band plays once in a while, just not used to that,” D-E sophomore outside hitter Anndi Frie said. “So I think we weren’t communicating to our best that we could, but we definitely could have cleaned it up a little bit more on our side.”Frie led the Eagles with 15 kills and chipped in four digs and two aces.D-E third-year head coach Cody Janzen said he thought his team started each set strong, but faltered around the midway point.”In the middle of the sets, about 12-14 points, we kind of fell back a little bit with our composure, with just attitude, both on and off the court,” Janzen said. “I thought that we were getting down on ourselves for no reason, even if we were winning. So I think that kind of played into the game today.”But overall, I mean, for our first time being able to step here at GCA and then being able to compete with a team like NL-S, I thought that we still played very well. They have big hitters, and I thought that we played very scrappy defensively. And serve-receive-wise, I thought that we did pretty well at that as well.”D-E senior setter Lauren Peck — who has been a key part of the Eagles’ rise through the volleyball ranks and was on varsity when they finished with just two wins in 2022 — said she didn’t really feel nervous for Thursday’s match.”I think honestly, for the first time being here, we were pretty composed,” Peck said. “I think we played pretty well. We had the entire town of Eyota and our fans over there, so it was pretty exciting. … I think the (Mayo) Civic Center kind of set the line for that, like depth perception-wise and stuff like that. … We missed a few serves, but we still kept them out of system. And serving’s a big thing with nerves, so I think we did well with that.”D-E junior libero Kennedy Gust, who finished with 10 digs, three set assists and two aces, acknowledged how far the program has come over the past few seasons.”It was just so crazy to see literally our whole community there supporting us, and it was just like ‘wow,'” Gust said. “And a few years ago, our goal was to make it to the Civic Center. Last year we d