With Linden and Meredith Sutton (No. 5) looking on, Jami Sjogren makes a great play to scoop a ball off the floor in the Vikings’ game against Esko. Esko beat the Vikings in 3 straight games but the Vikings rebounded to take 2-3 games in the Hill City tournament.
Looking thoroughly beat (as in tired), the Cook County High School Vikings volleyball team ended a tough week of play losing 25-7, 25-11, 25-13 to the Esko Eskimos on Thursday, September 18 at home.
Earlier in the week the Vikings traveled to Mesabi East, who had beaten Esko a week ago, and then the next night traveled to play unbeaten Carlton on their home floor before playing Esko in Grand Marais on Thursday night. Those are most probably the toughest three teams the Vikings will face this year, and to play them all in the same week was a daunting task.
Although Esko has players that can spike the ball and they did some of that, they often found the soft spot—the doughnut hole—in the Vikings’ defense, and hit shots the Vikings couldn’t get to. Much of that was due to the Viking players being tired and unable to react as fast as they normally would have.
For the game Maddy Roy had 9 digs and Meredith Sutton had 5 kills. Esko’s Gianna Jubie had 21 set assists, Judy Wagemaker 8 kills, Molly Trapp 7 kills, Mary Pelletier 5 ace serves and 10 digs and Karen Houser had 10 digs. The 6’5” Trapp also had 4 blocks at the net and altered several shots with her windmill-like arms.
The Viking record fell to 5-3 with the three losses suffered this week.
Through seven games Linden Sutton leads the team in three categories: blocks (34), digs (66) and kills (49). Alex Slanga leads the team in serving aces with 16 while Madison Roy’s 71 assists far outpace the next Viking. While not leading the team in any one statistic, Jami Sjogren is putting together a nice season with 59 digs, 11 serving aces and 19 kills.
Hill City Tournament
What a difference a day makes. The Vikings traveled to Hill City and played three games in the Hill City volleyball tournament on Saturday, September 20, finishing second to Hill City in the championship game.
“We played Northland first. It was a good warm-up game for us. Britta (Andress) had a great game hitting and blocking,” said Head Coach Pam Taylor.
The Vikings beat Hill City 25-6, 25-15.
Andress finished with 7 kills, Meredith Sutton 5 kills, Jami Sjogren 5 aces and Trace McQuatters 4 aces.
“We played Bagley next and they were a little tougher for us to beat. Still, our kids played well, moved their feet and talked more on the court. Something we didn’t do when we played Esko,” Taylor said.
The Vikings beat Bagley 25-16, 25-23.
Andress ended with 5 kills; Lily Gruber-Schulz 3 blocks and Linden had 3 aces.
The Vikings lost in the championship game to Hill City 25-16, 25-17.
“We used our big front line of Lily, Britta and Meredith against Hill City, which worked well in our first two games, but Hill City lollipopped the ball over the front line and found holes in our defense.
“Overall I was very pleased with the energy we played with. It was good to see schools we do not see during the regular season. Overall I was very happy with the way we played. Now we just have to keep working on our passing, moving our feet instead of lunging. If we get better at communicating and passing, we will continue to improve,” said Taylor.
The Vikings’ next home game is Tuesday, September 30 against Lake View Christian. The varsity takes the floor at 6:30 p.m.
Go Vikings!
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