The Conner Cougar volleyball team wanted to remove the taste of the loss at Ryle on Thursday as quickly as possible and did that with a 3-0 (25-17, 25-21, 25-22) win over the Highlands Bluebirds on Tuesday.
The Cougars (11-2) had to fend off the determined Bluebirds (4-6) in front of their home crowd at Russell Bridges Gym. Conner has won three in a row in the series.
“It’s extremely gratifying,” said Douglas Rabe, Conner head coach. “It was tough because we hadn’t had a practice since then to discuss anything. Hats off to Highlands for playing scrappy. It was point-for-point for quite a while. We just made a couple runs here and there to take the win from them.”
Conner had 42 kills, 16 blocks, 40 assists, 35 digs and six aces in the match. The Cougars used their size to control the net with their two senior middle blockers. Lilly Hamburg had 21 kills and two blocks with Peyton Walker recording eight kills and seven blocks. Outside hitter Carly Nehus added eight kills and Annika Berwanger had four blocks.
“I think smartness and keys in where you’re going to place the ball is the most important aspect of the game,” Walker said. “I think that’s what we focused on this game and that’s what got us the win. Our setters did amazing. We wouldn’t be there without them.”
Anna Hamilton started the offensive rhythm with a team-high 14 digs with Hamburg and Bailey Morris recording two aces each. Setters Aubrey Depenbrock, Jordan Ransdall and Mackenzie Sandeen had 16, 14 and eight assists, respectively.
Highlands had 27 kills, 27 digs, 27 assists, 14 blocks and two aces. Rachel Ossege had nine digs, four blocks and 10 kills. Sydney Schomaker had seven kills and Hayden Gessner had nine digs with Lyla Bottom adding five blocks. Ava Muzumdar and Ella Cox had 14 and 13 assists respectively.
“I loved our fight. We fought for pretty much everything,” said Jim DeLong, Highlands head coach. “We just have little things that we need to get better at. All throughout that match, we’d get down and we’d come all the way back. Just some mental errors and some defensive positioning errors kind of hurt us at key times.”
Highlands led Conner, 3-0 to start the first game. Tied at 11, Conner used a 7-2 run to go up 18-13 on its way to taking the set.
Conner saw Morris land two aces to go up 6-2 in the second game. Highlands did cut it to 16-14. Conner went back up six before Walker finished the set with a kill.
Conner started the third set with a 4-1 lead. Conner led 20-14 on a McKenzie Deatherage kill. Highlands cut it to 21-19 before Walker finished it with a kill.
“They had strong hitters and they had smart strategies,” Depenbrock said. “Their blockers were catching on to what we were doing. The third set came hard because they predicted what we were doing. We tried to outsmart them.”
Conner plays at Campbell County (5-5) on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Highlands plays host to Holy Cross (12-1) on Thursday at 7 p.m.
