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Trojans Take 3-of-4 Sets from Pelican Rapids in HOL Match

By Craig Olson, 10/11/19, 3:00PM CDT

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The Pelican Rapids Vikings hosted the Barnesville Trojans in a Heart O’ Lakes Conference volleyball match up Thursday with the Trojans posting a 3-1 (25-17, 25-14, 12-25, 25-9). 

“We have had a busy week of games with a tough battle on Monday night and a long road trip on Tuesday, so I definitely could see a little bit of fatigue in the way we came out in this match,” said Barnesville Head Coach Megan Askegaard.  “We have been battling a few minor injuries only with colds.  Our defense was again solid to start the match with many hustle plays occurring on both sides of the net.  Pelican Rapids is a scrappy team who picks up many balls that we thought were going to be down on the court.  Our serving game was also tough with many aces and aggressive balls taking them out of system with their attack.  My backrow players were relentless in making sure they got touches on balls coming in their direction while the hitters on the net went at them will full confidence tonight.  We still need to work on eliminating our attacking errors, but for the most part we did a nice job making the Vikings play defense and not giving them free points.”

Barnesville was led by Sam Passa (12 kills, 6 digs, 2 block assists), Jordan Tschumperlin (17/18 serving, 1 ace, 3 kills, 4 digs, 1 solo block, 2 block assists), Lexi Bolgrean (5 kills, 15/18 serving, 1 ace, 15 digs, 1 block assist), Emily Bredman (9 kills, 3 digs, 2 solo blocks, 2 block assists), Katie Newell (11 set assists, 16/16 serving, 4 aces) and Kim Maesse (23 set assists, 13/13 serving, 1 ace, 8 digs).

“The Vikings came off back to back wins this week and were ready for the challenge of the top conference and section ranked Trojans,” stated Pelican Rapids Head Coach Heidi Isaman.  “The Vikings new they needed to pass the ball well to get our hitters a chance to power through the powerful blocking game of Barnesville.  This was a back and forth battle for us tonight.  When we passed well and hit the ball extremely well and had some great offensive runs.  However, we struggled blocking their pin hitters tonight which gave the Trojans some big runs of their own.” 

Leaders for Pelican Rapids were Ryley Paulson (8 kills, 14 digs), Anna Stephenson (8 kills, 13 digs), Riley Berg (13 digs) Greta Tollefson (5 digs, 12 assists, 2 block kills), Sophia Paulson (12 assists) and Allie Haiby (3 aces).

The Vikings will host their last home seasonal game next Tuesday before they travel to Fergus Falls for a tournament next Thursday.