“It was another slow start for the Cowgirls,” stated Head Coach Margaret Wilson. “Missed serves and poor passing got us down right away in the first set. We were constantly playing defense because we couldn’t set up our offense at all. We really turned that around at the end of the second set, as we switched up some rotations in the third set and I think that kind of gave us a little spark to put our offense together. We knew we needed to take advantage of the rotations when Paige Thompson was in the back row and I think we did just that. Camryn Kaehler (16 kills, 10 digs, 3 block assists) turned on her hitting game and started swinging with a lot more power than we’ve seen lately. Jude Held (6 kills, 6 digs, 3 block assists) showed her determination at the net and earned us 2 kills, and as a team we scored 4 aces in the set, courtesy of Abby Johnson (6 kills, 14 digs, 3 aces), Kaitlin Arnhalt (15 set assists, 5 digs, 2 aces), and Riley Finkral (17 digs, 3 aces). Our composure during the third set, even though we started from behind, stayed calm and focused. We knew what we needed to do and we trusted that everyone was going to do their job for our team. It was a great win for us.”

The fourth set started with the Cowgirls taking an early lead. “We kept our front row swinging, which kept Hawley out-of-system allowing us to keep some momentum,” said Wilson. “Defensively, Finkral recorded 5 digs, Carcie Materi 3 and Johnson 3 and our front-row blockers earned 3 kills blocks, courtesy of Kaehler, Held, and Riley Lorenz. Offensively, Kaehler stayed hot, scoring 6 kills in the set, Tori Undem (7 kills, 3 digs, 2 block assists) picked up her game and tallied 4 kills, and Held with 2. We wanted this set; we got ahead right away, stayed strong both offensively and defensively, and the set ended in our favor.”

The fifth set saw the Cowgirls take a 5-1 lead and it went back-and-foruth from there, but at 10-6, Johnson dove headfirst into the scorers’ table going for a dig and that pulled her out of the game.  “That shook us up a bit,” acknowledged Coach Wilson. “Madi Larson stepped in for Johnson and we went up 11-6. We had a couple rough serve receive passes and couldn’t get our front row a good set to attack and the score quickly changed to 12-10. At 12-12, we lost a bit of our determination and Hawley took advantage of that and took the 5th set and match 3-2.  We had it, we had the momentum, the determination, and we were competing well. Although it didn’t turn out in our favor, it was a great match and I hope it gives us the spark we need going into the last 3 weeks of our regular season. We made a lot of changes throughout the match, and the girls did an excellent job adjusting to them. It was awesome to see every aspect of our game coming together, and the girls just playing volleyball.”