“Last night we traveled to Glyndon to check out their new facility and take on the Lady Rebels,” said Barnesville Head Coach Megan Askegaard. “We started the night off strong with some stellar serves from Amelia Newell getting us an early jump at 8-4 before a DGF side out from a hitting error on our side of the net. Our passing was on tonight and we were serving strong to start things off. Kenadee Gray had a nice run to extend our lead from 10-5 all the way to point 14-6 before they were able to side out off the blocking error by our middle. We continued to play tough defense in the first set and read their hitters very well.” 

Askegaard continued, “Moving into set 2 Barnesville took an early lead with some aggressive serving from Emily Smith. We were up early in the set 6-2 before an attacking error made by us on the outside. Our block was big in this set and we attacked their gaps in the backrow. Our servers also really went after their serve receive passers and made them play out of system more than they would have liked. Sydney Strand had a couple nice serve balls at the end that pushed us closer to 25. We did a nice job putting our passes on the net and really running our hitters in to attack on the net. 

“Moving into the third and hopefully final set, we needed to come out a little strong and with more confidence. We found ourselves trailing early on and then we slowly picked up the pace on our side and began to be more aggressive. DGF eliminated some of their mistakes that they were making early in the night. We held on and played the way we can. We just need to show a little more leadership and communication out on the court and help each other out more when we can with our voices. Very proud of the way we pulled through tonight and finished a match in 3 sets,” concluded Coach Askegaard. 

Leaders for Barnesville were Belle Peterson (7 kills), Emily Smith (6 kills, 15/16 serving, 1 ace, 4 digs, 1 solo block), Kenzie Skogen (5 kills, 15 digs), Emily Riddle (4 kills, 3 solo blocks, 1 block assist), Amelia Newell (3 kills, 15/15 serving, 2 aces, 6 digs), Rumley Biewer (16 set assists, 15 digs, 1 block assist), Kenadee Gray (111 digs, 12/13 serving, 1 ace) and Sydney Strand (9 digs, 11/12 serving, 3 aces).

Barnesville (6-5) will host Henning on Tuesday, Breckenridge on Thursday and their home tournament on Saturday.

No DGF stats were reported.