The Rabbits won 25-8, 25-17, 25-12 to improve to 2-1 on the year overall and 1-0 in the conference.

The Cougars (0-3, 0-1) were overwhelmed right out of the gate by an aggressive Wabasso team that suffered its only loss of the year so far against equally as impressive Minneota last week. Cedar Mountain went down 8-0 in the first set before getting on the board.

Wabasso controlled the rest of the set, breezing to a 1-0 lead after several Cedar Mountain errors. The Cougars responded better in Set 2, managing to pull out to a slim 8-6 lead over Wabasso before the Rabbits could respond with 3 straight points to lead 9-8.

With Cedar Mountain trailing 23-17, Wabasso finished the set after a kill by McKenna Nelson and Amanda Hoffman.

Cedar Mountain head coach Beth Hill said that despite the loss, she thought it was a good learning experience for her young squad and a nice turnaround in Set 2.

“Tonight was a great opportunity for us to grow,” Hill said. “We knew they were going to be a very good team, and these girls worked hard to prepare for it. The first game we came off a little bit shell-shocked and after that, it shows a lot of character how he responded in the second set. We do have young girls and a lot of inexperienced girls, but we are definitely making great strides in the right direction.”

The third set saw Wabasso return to form with a quick 4-0 run out of the gate for a 6-1 lead after a block and kill by Maddy Guetter and a kill by Cora Eichten. Wabasso continued another strong run to push its lead to 14-2 after a pair of Guetter kills and a block by Eichten, who had five blocks on the night, to force a Cedar Mountain timeout.

The Cougars got as close as 9, 21-12, before a 4-0 Rabbits run closed out the final set.

Guetter turned in a strong performance with 16 kills, eight digs, a pair of aces and a pair of blocks.

Guetter has high hopes for the season early in the year and said she was proud of her team’s ability to respond well after last week’s loss.

“I think that tonight we did a great job of coming out as a team and playing together, working hard together and keeping up our level of intensity instead of playing slower, which can happen,” Guetter said. “I thought we did a great job of distributing the ball all-around and getting lots of players involved in the game.”

Jenna Frank led Wabasso in set assists with 27, while Nelson had three aces and was 17 of 18 with her serves. Hoffman had five kills and three blocks for the Rabbits, while Eichten added four kills.

Megan Rothmeier led Wabasso in digs with 13.

Nadia Meyers led the Cougars with 22 digs, while Trista Smith had 18 digs and three kills. Megan Sandgren had 11 digs and eight kills, while Natalie Lux had eight digs and seven kills.

Emma Schouvieller had 14 set assists and seven digs for the Cougars.

Wabasso will partake in the Montevideo Tournament this Saturday, while the Cougars play in the Mankato West Tournament on Saturday at Minnesota State University.

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