Lady Jays Volleyball
Mid-State Conference Final Night
by Kaila Spieker
The Pierce Lady Jays volleyball team played in a triangular during the final evening of the Mid-State conference tournament at O’Neill on Thursday, October 22. Pierce played Boone Central/Newman Grove and won in two sets and played O’Neill, but they lost in three sets.
In the Lady Jays game against Boone Central/Newman Grove, Pierce won their first set 25-12, and they also won their second set 25-13. Overall in this game, the Lady Jays had 22 kills. Senior Faith Lubischer had 16 aces and junior Kennedy Warneke added four, sophomore Larissa Meier contributed three, sophomores Brielle Unseld and Morgan Moeller got two each, and freshman Maggie Painter had one ace. Getting two solo blocks each were freshman Jaya Wachholtz and senior Abigail Meier.
The libero for the games, Morgan Moeller, said, “Our team needs to work on communication and stopping teams from going on big runs, but I think our team did a good job of fighting back and not giving up.”
For their game against O’Neill, the Lady Jays lost the first set 11-25 but came back around in the second set winning it 26-24. In the last set, the Lady Jays lost 25-20.
In this game, they achieved 32 kills, with Warneke having 11 of those and Lubischer getting seven kills. Wachholtz and Meier added four kills each, and Painter had four.
Head coach Zach Weber remarked, “A big focus going into district play is going to be serve receive and just passing in general. I thought we spent too much time out of the system.”
The Lady Jays competed in sub-districts this week.
Lady Jays Played Tight Volleyball Match Against Cedar Catholic
by Ella Gaes
On Tuesday, October 20, the Lady Jays fell short to the Hartington Cedar Catholic Trojans in their second Mid-State conference volleyball game 15-25, 23-25, and 27-29.
Assistant coach Allison Koehler commented on the game saying, “It was a tough-fought battle between both teams. I thought each team did a great job of playing hard and making plays. Unfortunately, it didn’t fall our way, but hats off to Cedar for coming and giving us a great look. We need to learn from it and focus on our next game and be prepared to compete with the same senses of urgency.”
The lead hitter of the game for the Lady Jays was Faith Lubischer with eight kills. Following right behind her was Kennedy Warneke with seven kills. Jaya Wachholtz added five kills, Maggie Painter three kills, Abigail Meier and Morgan Moeller both contributed two, and Brielle Unseld had one.
Larissa Meier, Unseld, and Warneke all served one ace.
As for blocking Painter, Unseld, A. Meier, and Wachholtz all got touches above the tape.
M. Moeller led the team with a total of 22 digs. Unseld dug 12, Painter and L. Meier both added 10, and Warneke had seven. Faith Lubischer and Wachholtz both made five digs, Mikala Stone had three, and Meier had one.
Middle hitter Meier commented on the game saying, “Just like in any game of volleyball, there are always good moments and bad moments. We did some really good things as a team and moving forward, we want to try and make our good moments our only moments.”
The Lady Jays competed on Monday for sub-districts.
Varsity Volleyball Plays First Game at Mid-State
by Taylor Compton
The varsity Lady Jays volleyball team played the Guardian Angels Central Catholic Bluejays on Monday, October 19 in the first round of the Mid-State Conference tournament. The Lady Jays went to three sets, but couldn’t keep up with the GACC Bluejays as the ending scores of each set were 18-25, 20-25, and 17-25.
Senior Faith Lubischer says, “I thought that we had a great effort when competing against GACC, but we had some trouble executing which made it difficult for us to get a lead.”
The lead hitter of the game was Faith Lubischer with 12 kills. Kennedy Warneke was just behind her with eight kills, Jaya Wachholtz added six kills, and Maggie Painter finished with four kills. Lubischer was also the top server as she recorded three ace serves, and Larissa Meier had one ace serve. Both Lubischer and Wachholtz each had one solo block.
Head coach Zach Weber comments, “I give a lot of credit to GACC. They are peaking at the right time and playing some very good volleyball. They swept Battle Creek, who is a top 10 team, right after playing us. To compete against teams like that we have to be a lot more consistent in our execution. We have to be able to do that often enough, which allowed GACC a lot of opportunities to score. ”
The Lady Jays played in sub-districts this week.
