Above: Playing the back line, Sarah Deschampe took the serve and nicely set up one of her team mates on the front line in the game against Silver Bay as Anna Carman watches. Right: Jessica Berg-Collman (13) goes up high to spike the ball against Silver Bay as Linden Sutton looks on. The Vikings beat Silver Bay but lost to Esko.
The Cook County High School girls’ volleyball team faced the always-tough Esko Eskimos on Thursday, September 6 at Esko and came away with a loss.
The Vikings are now 2-1 for the season and 1-1 in conference play.
Christaia Houser, who had 12 kills, led Esko.
Esko swept the Vikings in three straight games, 25-15, 25-16, and 25-19.
But the match wasn’t a total loss for the Vikings. “We started playing better than we have been playing. But there is always room for improvement,” said Head Coach Pam Taylor.
Esko, a Triple A school, has a much larger enrollment than Cook County, which is a Single A school. But still, the Vikings played the Eskimos much better in the last two years, so the disappointed players left the floor with more game in them than they displayed.
For its part, Esko has now won 27 consecutive conference games.
Although the Vikings were swept 3-0, Taylor said her team shouldn’t hang its head, and said she thought the team is playing better than they did their first two games— both wins—when they played weaker opponents.
“Against Esko we played more as a team. The girls communicated better on the floor and we improved our serving percentage by 10 percent from the game against Silver Bay. Things are starting to click,” Taylor said.
Taylor also said two players stood out for the Vikings against Esko. “Sarah Deschampe came in and played good on the back row. I also thought Jessica Berg-Collman did a good job of setting for us.”
The Vikings played Floodwood at home on Thursday, September 13, then travel to Mesabi East on Monday, Sept. 17, before coming home to play Moose Lake/Willow River on Tuesday, Sept. 18. The varsity takes the floor at 6:30 p.m. Come out and cheer your Vikings!
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