Central volleyball returns to winning ways
Tori Sylvester tied with teammate Lexi Loan for the most kills in Central’s win over Kee. They each recorded nine. (Photos by Bev Hamann)
Katelyn Scherf netted four kills against the Hawks. She was also one of Central’s top servers, smashing five aces.
By Willis Patenaude, Times-Register
The Central volleyball team continued to establish itself as a frontrunner for Upper Iowa Conference supremacy, with two conference sweeps last week, bringing their UIC record to 4-0 and overall record to 11-20. The Warriors are currently one game behind South Winneshiek with four conference games remaining.
The winning started against the winless Postville Pirates, as the Warriors took all three sets by scores of 25-11, 25-18 and 25-20. The match saw the Warriors hit 24 aces, with Katelyn Scherf leading the charge with seven, followed by Aly Feickert with six, and Lexi Loan with five.
Coach Kelly Erickson noted the team had nine service errors, however, which is more than she wants the team to have. Overall, the Warriors finished with 87.8 percent serve efficiency.
Leading the team on offense was Loan and Gracie Cummer, with seven kills each, followed by Tori Sylvester and Feickert with five. Lizzie Royer had a good game with 28 assists, and also led the team on defense with 11 digs. Mackayla Vlazny chipped in 10 digs, while Feickert had nine and Sylvester eight. The Warriors accumulated three blocks, one each from Loan, Cummer and Scherf.
The winning continued against the winless Kee Hawks later in the week, as Central won all three sets: 25-11, 25-10 and 25-23.
Serving was again the team’s strength, as Scherf completed 20 of 23 serves with five aces. Feickert went 13 for 13 with two aces and Royer was 10 for 10 with five aces. In all, the Warriors had 17 aces, with only four errors, which was an improvement over the match against Postville. The serve efficiency was 94.5 percent.
On defense, Loan led the team with 12 digs, followed by Sylvester with eight and Feickert with six. The Warriors totaled 41 digs and one block, which came from Sylvester.
Offensively, Loan and Sylvester led the team with nine kills each, and Feickert finished with six. Scherf and Cummer both added four.
Despite the wins, one area of concern as the season winds down is maintaining the same level of attacking the ball, something that faltered as the matches went on and led to closer third sets. Central will also continue to work on communication to cut down on instances of letting the ball drop.
Erickson stated, however, that the Warriors have made steady improvements throughout the season, most notably in the area of communication.
“Overall, we have improved greatly, but will know that we can always improve on our communication. From the beginning of the season, we discussed things that we could control, and communication was one of those things, along with effort and attitude,” Erickson said.
The Warriors will take on Turkey Valley on Oct. 4, followed by another road match against North Fayette Valley on Oct. 6.
“This week, we have a couple tough matches…we will continue to work on our serve receive as well as our attacking the ball. We know that, when we attack the ball, we win games. It is when we free ball, tip or push the ball that we don’t win games,” Erickson said. “So our goal is going to be to play our game, and really work at attacking the ball as much as possible… We know that we have to stay positive and take each night, game by game. We can’t look past any team. We need to continue to play our game. When we do this, we can compete with any team.”
