Luverne senior Stephanie Morgan keeps a ball alive during the 2002 volleyball debut against Sioux Valley-Round Lake-Brewster in Luverne Thursday. Morgan led the Cards with 11 kills during a 3-2 victory.
By John Rittenhouse
The Luverne volleyball team opened the 2002 campaign by posting a 3-2 home victory over Sioux Valley-Round Lake-Brewster Thursday.
The Cardinals, a young team that has one girl playing the same position (setter Brittney Williams) from the 2001 season, seemed to be out of sync at times during the match.
Luverne, however, came up big when it had to against a senior-dominated SV-RL-B team. When the two-hour match was complete, the Cardinals and their fans were able to celebrate a season-opening win.
"It definitely was played like it was our first match of the season," said LHS coach Mary Jo Graphenteen. "I thought we could have won this match in three (games), but SV-RL-B is a scrappy team. They dug up a lot of balls, and we really had to scramble a lot to win."
Luverne got off to a good start in Game 1 when it turned a 4-3 edge into a nine-point cushion (12-3) with an 8-0 run. Tara Boomgaarden served the run, which featured a pair of ace deliveries by the server, and two kills and one ace tip by Emily Oksness.
The Raiders climbed within five points (12-7) of the Cards as the game progressed, but a pair of ace serves by Oksness and a tip from Boomgaarden capped a 15-7 win.
A 7-0 run featuring two kills by Stephanie Morgan, two ace serves and two service points by Brittney Williams and a point from Boomgaarden gave the Cards a big lead in Game 2.
SV-RL-B, however, scored the next 13 points before Luverne put together a 5-0 surge (two points and one ace serve by Williams, and one point and one ace serve by Morgan) that left the Cards facing a 13-12 deficit. The Raiders then recorded the next two points to prevail 15-12 and knot the match at one game each.
Luverne responded to the situation by rolling to a 15-0 win in Game 3.
Morgan served a seven-point run that featured three ace serves, one kill by Taylor Nelson and one ace tip by Oksness. Callen Bosshart served a six-point run during the game that was spurred by a pair of ace tips from Boomgaarden.
Luverne seemed to be in control of the fourth game when it turned a 9-7 edge into a 13-7 cushion with an ace block by Nelson, an ace serve from Cassie Pap and one ace tip and one service point from Boomgaarden.
Although the Cards needed to score two points to win the match after their 4-0 run, they were outscored 9-1 during the rest of a game that ended with SV-RL-B boasting a 16-14 win.
Luverne scored the first four points of Game 5 and led 10-1 when Bosshart served a six-point run featuring one kill and one ace tip by Boomgaarden, and one kill and one ace block by Morgan.
SV-RL-B scored the next point, but a point from Williams, followed by a three-point run served by Morgan, clinched a 15-2 win for LHS.
Morgan led the Cardinals with 11 kills in the match. Boomgaarden added eight kills, Pap and Nelson recorded seven each and Oksness chipped in six.
Boomgaarden served a team-high 18 points from the line. Morgan had 14 points, while Bosshart and Williams served 11 and 10 points respectively.
Williams also had 24 set assists.
"We did a lot of positive things in the games we won," Graphenteen said. "Serving hurt us in the games we lost. We missed 14 serves in the two losses. It's hard to get anything going in the game of volleyball when you miss that many serves. The good news is a lot of the unforced errors we made are the type of mistakes we can improve upon in practice."