Knights shut down Indians in crosstown battle
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SLEEPY EYE -- In a high-stakes Tomahawk Conference volleyball match Thursday night at Sleepy Eye St. Mary's High School, the Knights handled business with crosstown rival Sleepy Eye in short order with a 25-15, 25-18, 25-23 sweep.
The win moved the Knights to 13-1 overall this season and -- more importantly -- 6-0 in the conference. The Indians dropped to 11-3 overall and 3-2 in the conference with the loss.
While Sleepy Eye opened each set with a lead, the Knights were able to control their block, gain momentum and set the Indians up with tough returns.
Jaci Domeier led the Knights with 12 kills and 18 digs, while sophomore Amelia Schwartz had a career-high nine kills to go with three blocks.
"Amelia and Jaci did a really nice job in the middle for us, kind of forced their middles to find a way around them," Knights head coach Jen Walter said. "And I thought that maybe they went a little bit more towards trying to tip on us and we were able to drop off some of our offside hitters and things like that."
Also for St. Mary's, Bella Hoffmann finished the night with 22 set assists, 10 digs and six kills, while Allie Labat had 21 set assists, 12 digs and four kills and Jenica Schroepfer had eight kills and eight digs. Abby Schwartz had six kills and three blocks, while Lacey Mathiowetz had 14 digs and Addie Hoffmann had 10 digs and three aces.
The Indians were led by Breaunna Mertz's eight kills and 13 digs, while Kadence Hesse had eight kills and two aces and Brooke Arneson had 18 set assists, 25 digs and two aces.
Indians head coach Sydney Geiger said her team was out of system more than in system and the lack of passing to set up hitters hurt. She also said that while this was a match to forget, it's also one to learn from.
"I told the girls, 'This is one to forget, but one to learn from,'" Geiger said. "We were exposed in a lot of areas tonight, so definitely a learning curve that we're going to see against the good teams. We still see Cathedral yet, BLHS, Cedar Mountain next week, who's out to get us after we beat them the first time. So teams are starting to figure out who we are and figure out our weaknesses, and we just got exposed tonight. So keep working on those and perfecting those a little bit, clearing those up a little bit more while we finish this stretch. This is a tough stretch that we have right now, so it's going to take a lot of mental toughness to forget this one, but learn from it and just get better."
The Indians took a 3-0 lead in the first set after a Hesse kill, an ace from Arneson and a block from Jade Sellner. The set was close until midway through when the Knights began to pull away, taking a 19-10 lead on a kill from Amelia Schwartz. A block by Domeier and an attack error gave the Knights the opening set.
Sleepy Eye opened the second set with a 3-1 lead before the Knights got a 7-0 run to jump ahead 8-3. After trailing by as much as 6, the Indians cut their deficit to 17-15 to force a Knights timeout.
The Indians got a kill from Amelia Schwartz out of the timeout before Leisha Martinez answered with a kill of her own for the Indians. The Knights got a kill from Labat, back-to-back kills from Domeier and a kill from Schroepfer, however, to pull ahead 22-16. The Knights ended the set on a block wall put up by Abby Schwartz and Amelia Schwartz.
The third set saw the Indians lead by 3 early on before the Knights stormed ahead 9-6. But the Indians got a 4-0 run that featured three kills by Mertz to take a 10-9 lead and force a Knights timeout.
With the Knights back in front 24-20, Sleepy Eye got a 3-0 run to stay alive and force another Knights timeout. Abby Schwartz then finished the set and match on a kill after Mertz's block was returned out of bounds.
The Knights next play at an invitational in St. Clair on Saturday morning, while the Indians are at Nicollet for an invitational Saturday morning.