“We started the night out with following our game plan of giving them a tough first ball on serve receive,” reported Barnesville Head Coach Megan Askegaard. “We really worked the corners and gaps in their serve receive rotation. I was very pleased with how well we moved our ball across the net for all out attackers. It is fun to see all your attackers running their routes and spreading the block out against the defense. We also blocked the ball on the net very well. Emily and Emily worked hard to always close the block on each antenna.”

With the Barnesville girls leading 9-6 in the opening set, Katie Newell went to the serving line to take their lead to 15-6 before the run ended with a hitting error by Barnesville.  “Our serving and our serve receive was extremely tough in the first set,” said Askegaard.

Barnesville fell behind 14-12 in the second set but regained a lead at 17-16, once again behind Newell’s serving.  Emily Smith went on a 10-0 serving run to start the third set and the Trojans cruised from there.  “We put the ball away nicely tonight and really kept our attacking numbers for each hitter very even across the net,” noted Askegaard.  “I was extremely pleased with how well we passed the ball on defense and on serve receive.  We read things very well and moved our feet to the ball.”

Newell led Barnesville with 27 set assists and 6 digs.  She was 13-for-14 serving with 3 aces.  Smith was a perfect 17-for-17 serving with 1 ace.  She added 6 kills.  Emily Bredman led the attack with 10 kills and added 4 blocks.  Anna Stanford and Sydney Strand led the defensive effort with 9 digs apiece and Lexi Bolgrean contributed 8 digs.  Kenzie Skogen was 12-for-14 on the serving line with 3 aces.

We ended the night getting many players into the match and those girls did a fantastic job playing hard and helping us finish the sets off tonight. It was a great team effort. Its always fun to see your bench getting into the match and working hard.