Lady Dogs paw down Blue Devils and Panthers

By Kelsie Hoitomt

The Boyceville volleyball team battled the Plum City Blue Devils last Tuesday night at home and won in three sets. They then hit the road last Thursday to play St. Croix Central where they finished 3-0 as well.

3-0 At Home 

The Bulldogs may have finished off the Blue Devils in three sets, but it did not come easy. Plum City did not go down with out a fight, which made for a truly exciting match that most likely caused a few people to lose some fingernails.

The end result was the Bulldogs winning 25-22, 24-20 and 26-24.

The first game had the Bulldogs on top for the first half until they started missing blocks and the score closed to 14-12.

The team’s cohesiveness seemed to be lacking during this match as the Lady Dogs were scrambling after the ball and falling into the net.

The score went from 23-18 to 23-22 on a few Bulldog errors. However, they were able to seal the deal after a kill by Abbey Bird for the win.

The second game started off knotted throughout with the score at 5-5 and then the Bulldogs were down 7-9, but bounced back after strong blocks by April Lake. The Bulldogs fell behind again to 9-12 and then Alexa Peterson took the court as setter after sitting out due to some ankle issues.

The team seemed to pull itself back together after this and the Bulldogs took a lead again of 18-17 after huge hits by Bird and Madysn Riek.

Bird continued to swing with force, blowing past the Plum City players, which aided in the team getting the score to 24-20.

The game point would then go to Peterson after she served an ace.

The Bulldogs’ attempt at ending the match in three sets did not go unchallenged in the third and final game. The Bulldogs moved up to 8-5 on kills by Lake and Bird, but fell behind on errors, which allowed the Blue Devils to knot the game at 8-8.

The Lady Dogs would get the upper hand again with the score at 16-13. A lengthy rally would bump the Blue Devils up a point after a net call on the Bulldogs to put the score at 19-14.

Plum City’s Sarah Gilles was on fire at the net with attacks as she continued to drive them into the Bulldogs, which bumped the score up to 19-16.

The score would go back and forth until errors on attacks would allow the Blue Devils to come within a two-point reach of 24-22.

The game would tie at 24-24 after the Blue Devils had a serve roll off the top of the net and fall to the floor.

The Bulldogs quickly bounced back from this and were able to make strong connections with the ball as Lake laid down a kill to put the score at 25-24.

An error on the Blue Devils during the following rally resulted in the Bulldogs 26-24 victory.

Lake had 16 kills and two service aces, Bird had 12, Schultz had one service ace and three kills, Abby Lorenz had three as well, Riek had two kills and Hellmann had one kill. Peterson had three service aces as well.

Pawing the Panthers

The Bulldogs beat the Panthers in three sets of 25-15, 25-18 and 25-16.

These wins happened with the help of Bird who had a seven point serving run in the first game, Lake who had two, five point runs in the second game and Schultz and Bird each had five point run in the third game.

The Lady Dogs had a combined 33 kills and seven service aces. Lake had ten kills and one ace, Bird had nine kills and three aces, Hellmann had seven kills, Schultz had six kills and one ace, Riek had one kill and Peterson and Jenna Beyrer each had an ace.

“Overall it was a good night for us, but we have a few things that we need to work on. We missed too many serves and we have to work on a few coverage situations, but as a coach, to be able to start picking at smaller things is really nice because that means the girls are doing a good job of taking care of the big things,” shared coach Score.

On the schedule, the Bulldogs hosted the Spring Valley Cardinals on Tuesday (Oct. 8). They will again be at home this Thursday night for a match against the Colfax Vikings starting at 7:00 p.m.