Junior High Volleyball

The Pirate Junior High “A” team played three games in mid-February, two against St. John/Endicott/LaCrosse, and one against Garfield-Palouse.

We played SJEL at home first and lost 21-25, 12-25, 15-13. Two days later we traveled to Endicott and lost 21-25, 21-25, 14-15. We hosted Garfield-Palouse and went down by 8-25, 25-16, 12-15.

Hailee Brewer had a great week and is turning into a dynamic, all-around player, said Coach Adam Van Vogt. She had 11 kills, 14 aces serving, and 7 digs.

Cassidy Bales also filled up the stat book. She contributed 8 aces, 8 digs, and 4 kills.

Hannah Bagby was one of our passing leaders, Van Vogt said. She totaled 18 total digs with a season-high 14 digs against SJE the second match. Hannah also added 9 assists.

Izzy Field led the team in blocks for the week with 6.

All of the girls that played on “A” team gave the team a lift even if it didn’t show up in the stat book, he said.

Taylor Gilbert stabilized our serve receive with great passing all week long. She is really getting solid with her serve receive, which is one of the toughest skills for junior high volleyball players to master, Van Vogt said..

Ashlee Pemberton had her usual strong net play for us and served well.

Laynee Herres, Adriana McGatha, and Stacia Bowen also played well this week and contributed solid passing in all three matches, he said. Adriana had to “emergency set” for us against Gar/Pal and gave us a huge lift. Brooklyn Rayford and Allyson Shaffer each got in one match, too, and played well.

“This was a bittersweet week for our team as we played so well much of the time. It’s tough to play well and be so close to winning each match but fall just short. These girls showed strong character through continuing to play tough and improving all week despite the challenges. The serve receive has consistently gotten better all season and the serving was solid most of the time. We are rallying better and staying lower on defense than we ever have too.

Unfortunately, it seemed each match we had some key plays break the wrong way and we didn’t get any match wins to show for our effort,” Van Vogt said. “Against both teams, but SJE in particular, we made some errors that cost us but I really appreciate that we set up a lot of pass/set/spike sequences and our opponents this week were much more content to bump the ball back over.

“Hitting errors and errors trying to get pass/set/spike cost us some points this week but will serve us well in the long run as we learn to play the game the right way,” he said. “We have come really far in being able to run an offense and I am proud of the girls.”