Here is Barnesville head coach Megan Askegaard's recap of the matches.

We started the morning off with our first pool play match with Menahga. It was great to see a section match-up right off the bat and a team we were scheduled to play regular season and ended up not having the game. We were a little slow going right away, but eventually took control with some powerful serving from behind the line as we worked to keep our 3rd ball in the court. We made a few errors early on in the set and that really allowed Menahga to hang around during this first match. I was pleased to get this first win this morning, it wasn’t pretty from start to finish, but we took care of what we needed to. 

Second round of pool play was against Battle Lake. We were in complete control the first set with another strong serving game and smart plays with our 3rd contact. Our serve receive passers did an outstanding job keeping us in system on right where we needed to be to run our attackers. Abby and Lexi H really put the ball away when we needed a kill during the first set. We moved into the second the set and were not attacking and waiting for the Battlers to come at us swinging. Our block was a little off in this set and we played more defense than we should have. We had too many unforced errors and didn’t put the ball away when we had a chance. We moved into the 3rd set and kept a small lead the entire set with smart plays and keeping the Battlers honest on the defensive side. A couple big serves from Axness and Bergman gave us the added push to end the set and be on top. 

Our final match of pool play was a HOL match up with Frazee. We fell short in the first set with many unforced errors coming from our 3rd ball attack and balls coming off our block. We made some great adjustments on the defensive side and really cleaned things up in the second set. Our setters moved the ball well in transition and found our kill for us when we needed a point on the score board. Our defense really gave us a nice spark in set 2 that forced us into a 3rd set with the Hornets. As soon as we got the ball back after a couple traded points early on Abby John went back to the serving line at 4-3, and forced a Frazee timeout at 6-3 after a big kill from Emmalyn to Axness in the front row. Frazee found a hole in our defenses but we balled back and moved Aubryn back to serve 8-4 where she served and set the ball extremely well from the back court and put us up 13-5 before a hitting error on our side of the net. Lexi served the final point with Sophie finding Addy up on the outside to kill the ball for the final point of the match. 

This moved us into the championship against the Breckenridge Cowgirls. You could feel the level of competition rise in this championship match to end the day. The Cowgirls are not very tall, but they pick up many balls on the defensive side and are extremely scrappy. We needed to change up our tempo and ball placement in this set and keep the Cowgirls moving on defense. We seemed to place the ball exactly where they were in the back court. We battled with them, but a couple bad balls here and there and we feel short in the first set. We made a strong push at the end of the first set, however it was just a little too late. Moving into the 2nd set we made a couple misreads on defense and didn’t pick up a couple well placed balls from the Cowgirls. We trailed as much as 8-11 before Macie Pauna made a couple nice serves and picked up a couple great defensive balls in the back court that tied us up at 11. We were allowing them to attack up from all areas when we fell down 14-20 before we took a timeout to make a couple adjustments on serve receive and defense. Sophie found Abby out of the TO and we quickly lost the serve due to an error in our defense. Trailing 15-21 when Blilie had a big kill on the Right side pin moving Alli back to serve. With her defense behind her she was able to string together a few balls to push the score 19-22. Emmy  found Aubryn on the Right side and them over herself back to serve and set the ball from the back court. When we pulled form behind finding Abby on back to back kills to finish off the second set and again force a 3rd set. Having the energy from the come from behind win in the second set we rolled into a couple quick mistakes in a quick set to 15 and trailed early on in the 3rd set 5-6 when Axness went back to serve an ace and a couple well placed balls in the Breck Serve Receive. She pushed our lead to 11-6 forcing a Cowgirl timeout. Alli served the reminder of the set with her defense coming up with some great plays and Abby putting down a big block and kill to round out the set and a 1st place finish for the Trojans.