“We opened set one scoring right away on serve receive which is one of our goals of the year,” reported Barnesville Head Coach Megan Askegaard.  “Our defense really made some big plays in this set and we passed fairly well.  We found ourselves trailing quickly in the second set and losing the momentum before Lexi came up with a big kill.  Our defense got us going in our rally, but we were making too many attacking errors at the net.  Set three was a great battle with two defensive teams making great hustle plays in the back court and in the fourth set we came out pretty flat to get behind early, but we passed the ball well at all times and moved well on the court for as warm as we were.  We really need to work on eliminating our hitting errors at the net.”

The lady Trojans were led by Sam Passa (8 kills, 21 digs, 2 block assists, 16/17 serving, 4 aces), Lexi Bolgrean (21 digs, 2 block assists, 3 kills, 18/20 serving), Emily Condon (21 digs, 19/20 serving, 1 ace), Jordan Tschumperlin (4 block assists, 3 kills), Katie Newell (13 set assists, 12/12 serving), Kim Maesse (14 set assists, 17/17 serving, 1 ace) and Emily Bredman (10 kills, 8/9 serving).

“It was a night of ups and downs for us, we played really well at times and then just struggled,” commented Underwood Head Coach Diane Ross.  “It usually has to do with the pass, if we are passing the ball well, the rest of the game goes well.  Our timing was off in set one.  In the 2nd set, freshmen Mo Bugbee got us off to a good start at the service line getting 5 straight points. Barnesville caught up, but our aggressive defense kept us alive for the win.  Set 3 was all Barnesville and it was close in set 4, but with the score 17-18, Barnesville went on a 5 point run, we did have some good defensive play after that, but couldn't catch them.  Barnesville is the #10 ranked team in the state and they made the plays when they needed them.  We were without our starting middle hitter Shaynah Smith, due to injury, and I thought Mo Bugbee did a good job of stepping up getting 5 kills and 2 ace blocks, along with some good serving streaks.” 

Josey Bugbee added 2 ace serves, 3 kills and 7 digs for the Rockets.  Ally Johnson led the attack with 10 kills, 7-7 serving with an ace, and added 2 ace blocks, followed by Brooke Hovland with 7 kills and 2 ace blocks. Kayla Rocholl led the defense with 18 digs, while Brianna Evavold added 12 digs, Reese Richards also had 12 digs and 26 set assists.

The Rockets are 6-4 on the season and face Battle Lake on Thursday.  

Barnesville improved to 8-1 with the win.