Topper girls fight hard at the net but come up short

By Kelsie Hoitomt

BOYCEVILLE – The Hilltopper volleyball team played in Boyceville this past week for a quad on Thursday, September 6 against the Bulldogs, Amery Warriors and Osceola Chieftains.

The scores for the Lady Toppers reflected a loss, but as a whole the team made improvements with every game.

“We lost the games, but had a great improvement with the ladies attitudes. They never gave up and stayed positive,” shared assistant coach Beth Lewis.

The Toppers first game was against the Osceola Chieftains. Haley Tiberg and Kelsie Knops were both a strong force at the net with several blocks and kills and Stephanie Caress had eight assists.

The Toppers lost both matches 14-25 and 18-25.

The girls played their second game against the Bulldogs who had just played their second match against the Warriors and won.

The Toppers were not able to take down the Boyceville girls as they lost both matches, 15-25 and 16-25.

They played a hard second game and gave the Bulldogs a fair fight once their kills and blocks connected.

Against the Bulldogs, Tiberg had seven kills and four blocks. Caress and Kenzie Kruse each had six assists. The teams libero Ashley Burns had six digs from the back row.

“We lost but as I said before their attitudes stayed very positive and upbeat,” said Lewis.
The third and final game was intense against the Warriors and the girls showed a definite desire to win.

“Coming into our third game I told the girls to really fight for it and with that I got an amazing game,” exclaimed Lewis.

The first match started with the Warriors ahead by a few points, but the Toppers battled back. Throughout the entire match the win bobbled back and forth between both teams to the very end.
The game tied at 23-23 and it didn’t stop there. Tiberg had a solo block to make the score 26-26 and then she turned around and had a hard kill to tie the game again at 27-27.

Finally with the score tied at 29-29, two passes were hit out of bounds by the Toppers, which gave the Warriors the first win, 31-29.

With the intensity up, the Toppers wanted a win in the second match and they earned it. The girls played hard and they beat the Warriors 25-20.

A tie breaker game had to be played, which was yet another close nail biting game. With the score tied at 14-14, the Toppers had to win by two. The girls struggled to get those final points and they lost 14-16.

In that game, Caress had 13 assists and Kruse had eight assists along with three serve aces. Tiberg earned herself 12 kills and Knops had a 11 kills. All together, Caress, Kelly Perkins, Maggie Jordheim, Kayla Bloss and Elizabeth Nyhus had 12 kills among themselves. Burns earned herself three more digs against the Warriors as well.

The Toppers will travel to Plum City on Tuesday, September 11 to play the Blue Devils starting at 7:00 p.m.