This past Saturday the Ranger volleyball team participated in the Hudsonville Invitational Tournament. The ladies played well, making it all the way to the finals. However, their opponent was none other than the Forest Hills Northern Huskies. The Rangers faced off against the Huskies in the Battle of the Hills event a month ago, falling short in three sets. Unfortunately for the Rangers, the same thing happened on Saturday. It’s well known that the Rangers have a well-put-together team, but so do the Huskies. With a strong senior class, the Huskies are one of if not the most talented teams the Rangers have faced this season.

Like in the Battle of the Hills, the loss was a result of minor errors that added on over time, allowing the Huskies to have a comfortable lead in each set. Senior captain Averie Zaschak talked about how she thinks the team let the Huskies score too many points, and with play errors from the Rangers led to their loss.

“We started to make a lot of our own errors,” Zaschak said. “We let them go on long point runs.”

This loss in the finals does not define the day the ladies had on Saturday, they faced off against many tough opponents and won, including a matchup against the fifth-ranked team in the tournament which was Hudsonville. A tournament win on Saturday would have been nice for the ladies, but there’s nothing wrong with second place, however, it was the difference between making a couple of errors that kept the Rangers from first place. If the ladies played clean, there could have had a very different outcome for this tournament.

As FHC’s rival, the Huskies are a team the Rangers plan on taking down at some point this season. To do so, the team knows some things need to change.

“In order to beat Northern, we need to really focus on our own weaknesses and work to better those,” senior Kate Hotaling said.“We also have to study Northern’s weaknesses.”

The ladies will face off against FHN in their last match of the regular season on October 13, this gives them a week and a half to prepare. This time around, Ranger country will see a different outcome.