Above: With three Viking players looking on, Anna Carman digs the ball off the floor and bumps it to her setter. Far right: Taylor Ryden grabs a piece of the sky as she goes up high to spike the ball against Moose Lake. Right: Ali Iverson blocked the spike attempt on this play against Moose Lake. The girls are now 5-1 on the year.
Playing in front of a large, appreciative home crowd the Cook County High School Vikings girls’ volleyball team swept the Floodwood Polar Bears in three straight games on Thursday, September 13.
The team is now 3-1 on the season and 2-1 in Polar League conference play. Floodwood falls to 1-3 and is 0-1 in conference play.
Both teams traded points during the first game and it was tied 12-12 before the Vikings started pulling away behind the serving of freshman Linden Sutton and her sister, junior Abbey Sutton. Both girls served numerous aces and the Vikings’ front and back lines were solid. The girls won the first game 25-16, and followed with games won 25-15, and 25-11 to end the best of the 5 game match early.
Anna Carman was outstanding in the backcourt with 20 digs, while Ali Iverson was a beast at the net with 9 kills and 8 assists. Rachel Wieben and Sarah Deschampe made many fine plays from the backcourt, while Taylor Ryden, Theresa Morrin and Stephanie Lashinski played well at the front line.
One thing the team did much better than they have in the past three games is communicate on the floor, with few miscues on who was receiving the ball from the serve or from the return.
“We have worked hard on that in practice. They’re not quite there yet, but they are improving at talking to each other on the floor and it shows in their play,” said Head Coach Pam Taylor.
Overall the Vikings hit a large percentage of their serves, and many of those hard hit serves were hard for the Floodwood players to handle.
Vikings beat Mesabi East 3-2
Ali Iverson led the Vikings to a victory over Mesabi East on Monday, September 17, with 17 kills, 4 aces and 10 block assists. The game was played at Mesabi East.
The Vikings took a close first game 26-24, then followed with a 25-20 win before Mesabi came storming back to take the next two games 25-18 and 25-16.
Coach Taylor settled her team down and they took the court and won the last game 15-11 to take the match.
“We had a few issues with our serving and passing in the middle of the match, but the girls put it together and came out with the win,” Taylor said.
Anna Carman again had a strong game in the backcourt with 21 digs while Sarah Deschampe and Lexi Palmer each had two serving aces. Stephanie Lashinski also contributed 4 kills and Abbey Sutton had 5 kills for the night.
Vikings beat Moose Lake 3-1
What do they say? No rest for the wicked? Well, the CCHS girls volleyball team is getting to be wickedly good with all of the matches they are playing. Less than 24 hours after facing Mesabi East the girls were suited up and playing Moose Lake/Willow River in another tough contest. This time they at least got to play at home.
Maybe it was fatigue, but the Vikings were out of sync in their first game against Moose Lake, losing 25-17. But then Coach Taylor switched her players around, changing the rotation and the team started to click.
“We changed some players and tweaked our passing game. I liked the switch and the girls said they liked it too, so for now we will stick with it,” Taylor said.
Jessica Berg-Collman was one of the big spark plugs for the Vikings with her setting as the Vikings came back to take the next three games 25-16, 25-22 and 25-12 to close out the Lakers.
Once again Ali Iverson had a huge night for the Vikings with 13 kills, 5 aces and 17 digs. Theresa Morrin also played exceptionally well with 22 digs, 1 ace, 4 kills and 1 block. Anna Carman was big with 18 digs and Abbey Sutton had 10 assists, 3 aces and 15 digs. Rachel Wieben contributed 4 kills and Jessica Berg-Collman had 14 assists and 2 aces.
“The team is continuing to improve, continuing to communicate on the court better every match, but we are only going to get better, and we will continue to look to make our line-up stronger as we go along,” said Taylor.
The Vikings faced Carlton on Thursday, September 20 and then will travel to Hill City to play in the Hill City tournament.
“We have three matches there and I hope we win it. We’ve won the last two years, so I hope we win it again this year,” Taylor said.
On Tuesday, September 25 the team plays Wrenshall at home. Varsity action begins at 6:30 p.m. Come out and cheer on the Vikings!
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