JV volleyball finishes the season strong with three straight wins
More stories from Timothee Larmande
November 12, 2021
In the final stretch of the season, the JV volleyball team battled it out against Greenville, Byron Center, and rival Forest Hills Northern. The girls finished the season potent, winning all three matchups.
To start these games, the girls played Greenville. Going into this game, Greenville was a team that the Rangers had not yet lost to. The girls kept it that way, winning in two sets 25-21 and 25-14. Elana Kavanagh finished this matchup with an amazing 10 kills.
Although the girls won both sets, they did not come easy. They were down a few points in both but they quickly found their mistakes in serve-receives and ball-handling and made big plays when it mattered. When the girls were comfortable with the score, they simply tried to keep things simple.
“We tried to keep things under control because Greenville makes a lot of mistakes and sends us a lot of free balls,” head coach Kendra Zwart said.
In the next matchup, they played Byron Center. This one was tighter, however, the JV team did win in both sets 25-23 and 28-26. TZ Cumbo Nacheli had a great game defensively along with Maggie Sneider and Elana Kavanagh having great blocks at the net. The main focus of this game was to have good serve-receive to help set up better passes for the hitters. They did a good job in this category throughout the game. At times, Byron Center surprised the team with some solid hits to the outside corners, but it did not do enough for Byron to win the game.
Lastly, the JV volleyball team faced off against the Northern Huskies. Once again, the team won both sets dominantly; 25-15 and 25-18 were the scores. Going into this game, the goal was to run free-ball plays. Everyone on the team got playing time and contributed positively in some way.
“The girls did extremely well in the second set, we never gave up and won,” sophomore Maggie Snieder said.
The Rangers succeeded in a ton of categories: good swings, consistent passing, good serves, and consistent setting.
“We also got a few up-tempo plays that worked,” head coach Kendra Zwart said.