Top: Abby Prom makes a great athletic play, stretching like a big cat to take this ball off of the floor. Above: In perfect position Maranda Deschampe makes a nice play on the ball, setting her front row up for a kill. Right: “No you don’t!” said Alyssa Lashinski to the McGregor Mercury player who was trying to spike on the Vikings.
A strong contingency of Viking volleyball fans stood and cheered after every Viking game against the McGregor Mercuries last week. Fans, a gym full, urged on the Viking girls’ volleyball team who pushed their record to 16-3 (one loss was in a tournament) in the team’s threegame sweep of the senior-laden Mercuries (Mercs) team.
The Vikings wasted little time, winning the best three games out of five match 25-19, 25-10, and 25-15.
Head coach Pam Taylor started her seniors, Emily Jacobsen, Maranda Deschampe, Sarah Toftey, Tarin Hanson, Hannah Toftey, and Mariah Deschampe, then went to an assortment of lineups the rest of the way, playing her entire bench and usual starters. All of the combinations worked as the disciplined Vikings ran their plays, receiving, bumping, passing, spiking and blocking the ball well.
How well was the offense clicking? Sarah Toftey, a shade over five feet tall, went up high and delivered a clean spike for the Vikings’ 16th point during the second game.
Abby Prom finished with 9 set assists; Tarin Hansen 13 set assists, Alyssa Lashinski five kills, Raina Ryden eight digs and Meredith Sutton had seven kills, five solo blocks, and four ace serves.
Unless the Vikings get a home game for playoffs, the Thursday, October 6 game against the Mercs was the last home game of the season.
The Mercs came in with a senior-laden team and were great from the serving line, but weren’t as strong at the net which the Vikings exploited.
Vikings beat Cromwell
Few college teams put on the kind of mileage that the Cook County girls’ volleyball team has traveled this season, and their season on the road continued when they went to Cromwell to play the Cromwell-Wright Cardinals, on Tuesday, October 11.
Maybe it was “bus” fatigue, but Cromwell took the first game 25-19. To be fair, Cromwell is well coached and has a good team, so the Cardinals were a good match for the Vikings.
Coach Pam Taylor settled her players down, and the Vikings rolled 25-21, 25-18, 25-19 to take the match three games to one.
Tarin Hanson finished with a team-high 41 set assists. Alyssa Lashinski had a great night on the floor, ending with 10 kills, five blocks, and 25 digs. Meredith Sutton led the team with 19 kills and 28 digs.
The Cardinals’ Bailey Gronner led her team with 22 kills and 12 digs.
Up next is an away game at Carlton on October 18, and then it’s off to the Section 7A playoffs. Currently, the Vikings’ 8-1 conference record puts them in third place in the Polar League behind Carlton (9-0) and Esko (8-0). On the season Esko is 15-9 while Carlton is 16-4. The Vikings won’t play Esko in the playoffs because they are a Double-A school. Once again the journey to the state finals may well go through Carlton. Tournament time should be exciting. Let’s go Vikings!
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