“The Vikings knew we needed to serve and hit aggressively to try and get the Rebels out of system to give their aggressive middles less opportunities to run the offense and we did exactly that to start set one, but then had a serve receive struggle run of our own to give the Rebels a shot to get their offense going again,” reported Pelican Rapids Head Coach Heidi Isaman. “The Vikings dug the ball well most of the night but struggled blocking their quick set out of the middle and their strong pin hitter on the outside.  Too many blocking and serve receive errors caused the Rebels to take advantage and win the opening set.  In the second set we knew we needed to block their middles better and serve receive more consistently to get more of our hitters in our offense.  Anna Stephenson had a few great serving runs on the night to boost the lead toward Pelican.  Greta Tollefson did a good job adjusting the middle block and getting some more quality touches on their athletic middle hitter and she did a great job of seeing the short court opportunity to score when they put a triple block up on her.  Ryley Paulson and Riley Berg played solid defense and attacked well from the back row to keep the Rebels on their toes.  Set 2 was a great back and forth battle but we struggled late in the match on serve receive and that was all the boost the Rebels needed to take back control go up 2-0.  We came out deflated in the third set and the Rebels took advantage by serving very aggressively at us and we had a really hard time getting into system most of the set. The Rebel utilized their strong outside hitter more and we really struggled stopping her as they completed the sweep.”

Anna Stephenson (4 aces, 8 digs), Greta Tollefson (4 kills, 5 digs, 4 set assists), Ryley Paulson (3 kills, 4 digs, 1 ace), Riley Berg (8 digs, 1 ace), Allie Haiby (7 digs) and Sophie Paulson (4 set assists) were the statistical leaders for Pelican Rapids.