“The girls started strong with getting our middle hitters Greta Tollefson and Adriana Torres some big kills at the net,” reported Head Coach Heidi Isaman. “The Cardinals, however, played great defense all night and picked up almost everything we fired at them. The Cardinals came back with a lot of off tempo balls that we had trouble picking up and it was a back and forth battle for set one. Set 2 started with a 10-5 lead again with a few big blocks by Adriana Torres and Ryley Paulson started finding the open court offensively. However, we missed a few key serves and the Cardinal outside hitter had a great serving run late in the set to get us out of system and they were able to even the match. Set 3 we knew we needed to communicate better on out of system, stay on our feet and read the hitters better, and get back to putting up a strong block. Adriana Torres had a great blocking night and really showed that in set 3. Defensive specialists Grace Peterson and Kaylie Isaman read the hitters much better and stayed on their feet to pick up their short game while setter Sarah Thompson utilized all her hitters to mix up our offense. Right side hitter Anna Stephenson stepped up her game to get in the offense and did a great job setting when setter was out of the offense. Set 4 the Vikings started a little slow making some execution mistakes and not communicating as well as they should. A nice serving run by Sarah Thompson and a few key digs by Peterson and Isaman got the momentum to shift while hitters Riley Berg and Adriana Torres showed they wanted the ball in the end.” 

Leaders for the Vikings were Thompson (2 aces, 35 set assists, 10 digs), Torres (13 kills, 6.5 blocks, 10 digs), Isaman (30 digs), Peterson (10 digs), Tollefson (9 kills), Paulson (9 kills) and Berg (7 kills, 5 digs). 

The Vikings will travel to Barnesville for a conference matchup on Thursday