CL volleyball team wins first home game

by Michelle Watson

It was a week of ups and downs for the Clear Lake volleyball team.  The Lions started the week getting swept by Clarion-Goldfield-Dows, but regrouped to sweep Crestwood on Thursday night.  The team struggled at the Forest City Tournament on Saturday, posting a 1-3 record.

C-G-D 3, CL 0

The Lions faced a very solid C-G-D team on Tuesday, Sept. 15.  The Cowgirls (10-2) dominated by scores of 25-9, 25-11 and 25-10.

“Our serve receive, which has been solid for most of the season, really struggled against their jump servers tonight,” said Coach Heather Johnson.  “It’s really hard to get into our offense when that happens, especially against a squad like Clarion.”

Clear Lake was nearly perfect from the service line, missing only one out of 32 attempts.

Delaney Eden led the team in kills and blocks.  She recorded four kills and four blocks.  Ali Maulsby recorded three kills and Emily Theiss had two.  Kaitlyn VanderPloeg and Xada Johnson each had two blocks.

Jaden Ainley led the team on defense with 12 digs.  Maulsby had nine digs and Ashlyn Fread and Layne Lester had six and five digs respectively.

CL 3, Crestwood 0

The Lions had a goal Thursday night to win the match against Crestwood (1-5) in three straight games, and that’s exactly what they did with scores of 25-22, 25-16 and 25-22.

“We had a really good, focused practice on Wednesday and bounced back from our loss on Tuesday,” said Coach Johnson.

Johnson praised the play of her non-starters, who push the starters in practice to get better.

Once again, serving was the team’s strongest aspect with 16 ace serves. Chelsey Holck and Johnson led the team at the service line with four ace serves. Holck and Maulsby both had 100 percent serve efficiency.  Holck was 14/14, while Maulsby was 9/9.

Seniors Holck and Eden led the team in kills with nine and eight respectively.  Vanderploeg recorded five kills and Grace Meyer and Johnson had four apiece.

Fread led the team in assists with 16.

Ainley led the team in digs with 16.  Maulsby dug up nine.

Forest City Tournament

On Saturday the team competed in a tournament at Forest City.  The Lions came away with a 1-3 record.

They started the tourney with a 2-1 loss to St. Ansgar (7-4).  The Saints took the first match, 21-15.  Clear Lake won the second match, 21-10 and St. Ansgar took the final match and the win, 15-4.

Holck led the team in kills with four.  Ainley led the team in digs with six.  Fread and Maulsby led the team in assists with seven apiece. Johnson was strong at the service line, serving 10/11 with three aces.

The next game was against Spencer (9-10), with the Lions claiming a 2-1 victory.  Holck was the kill leader with six.  Vanderploeg and Eden had four apiece.  Holck and Johnson led at the service line with four and three aces apiece.  Ainley and Johnson led the team in digs with nine and eight respectively.

Clear Lake ended the tournament with 0-2 losses to Forest City (9-5) and Lake Mills (10-3).

Scores for the Forest City match were 21-15 and 21-16.  Johnson again led the team at the service line, serving 11/12 with three aces.  Ainley was the team leader on defense with seven digs.  VanderPloeg led the team in assists with six.

Lake Mills defeated Clear Lake by scores of 21-11 and 21-15.  Fread led the team in assists with seven.  Holck and Johnson led the team in kills with three

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apiece.  VanderPloeg recorded four blocks.

  “We are so close to putting it all together, but we are falling just a little short.  Once we start putting a few more puzzle pieces together, at the same time, good things will start to happen,” said Johnson.

The Lions have not matches this week and won’t be competing again until Tuesday, Sept. 29.

“While we are not thrilled to not be competing this week, it gives us time to work on our skill sets, get reps and really work on our line-ups,” said Johnson.

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