“We won our pool playing 3 solid matches in the morning and then saw Hawley in the championship match for the day,” reported Barnesville Head Coach Megan Askegaard. “Throughout the day we passed the ball extremely well and worked to improve our game with every match. Our defense was solid today as it has been very consistent all season for us. We battled back in a couple of our pool play matches to come up with wins.”

 In pool play Barnesville won all three of their matches in straight sets, beating Battle Lake 25-12, 28-26, Frazee 25-21, 25-17, and Win-E-Mac 25-22, 25-17.

“In the championship match with the Nuggets we fell short in the first set (25-16) and then came back in the second (25-21) making a few defensive changes that helped us immensely,” stated Coach Askegaard. “We played with more confidence and played great defense against tough Hawley attackers. Paige Thompson attacked the net for the Nuggets and we struggled to pick the ball up. We were able to string more points together when she went to the back row. We were up 11-7 in the 3rd set before we let the Nuggets back into the set.”  Hawley won the third set 15-13 to claim the tournament title.

Kill leaders for the tournament were Lexi Bolgrean (25), Emily Bredman (19), Sam Passa (26), Jordan Tschumperlin (11) and Olivia Sorenson (10).  Bolgrean and Katie Newell each served up four aces on the day and Passa added three aces.  Tschumperlin, Kim Maesse and Emily Condon each had 2 ace serves.  Leading in digs were Condon (46), Passa (42), Bolgrean 37), Newell (19) and Maesse (17).  Newell (42) and Maesse (36) combined for 78 set assists.  As a team the Trojans served 93.5% in the tournament.