You could say that Ipswich won the Battle of Highway 12 in high school volleyball outcomes last week in the Tiger Den. That's because Ipswich defeated Groton Area earlier in the week and then topped that with a 3-0 sweep of Waubay/Summit two nights later.
But the W/S Mustangs were not an easy out. They took the Tigers to 25-23 in the opening set that was capped by a Quincy Olivier kill immediately after a Katie Bierman kill. Ipswich was however able to jump out to a solid start in set number two with a 16-5 lead before the visitors began to chip away. It would end up 25-11 punctuated by a Tasia Rivera kill.
The third set reverted back to a nail-biter with the Mustangs actually pulling into a 21-21 tie. But Ipswich would respond with four straight points, capped by back-to-back Gracie Lange kills for the set point and match point.
Lange would finish the evening with a 33-34 hitting evening that totaled 17 kills in preliminary stats. And Bierman was next with a 24-27 night at the net and featured seven kills, followed by Baylee Kulesa 9-13 with five kills. Altogether Ipswich pounded out 36 kills among their 84 total hits in 95 tries. The visitors included 18 kills in their overall net attack.
Ipswich jump-started its night at the net with 85 sets in as many tries and featured 29 assists, led by Olivier with a 69-69 evening that included 26 assists. Meanwhile the Mustangs recorded 20 set assists.
Ipswich got some timely aces at the service line, totaling 13 aces among its 51 accurate serves in 62 attempts. Bierman went 11-14 at the line with five aces and Vanesa Diaz was 9-10 there with three aces. The visitors countered with a 43-53 serving effort.
Ipswich came away with 59 digs paced by Madison Geditz with 15 and Kaitlyn Williams with 10. The visitors recorded 19 digs and two block assists. Ipswich had four block assists led by Olivier and Diaz with two apiece.
Coach Osborne commented on the win: "We showed our youth a little last night and lost focus from time to time, which made games one and three a little closer than I thought they should have been. But many of the mistakes that we are making are aggressive mistakes and we can live with those types of errors. But when the going got tough all of the girls stepped up, knew what we needed to do, and got focused and got it done. I think that game two showed what this group of girls is capable of if they are in sync throughout a match. We just need to have that focus and effort throughout each point of a full match as the season moves on. It is a good start and it only gets tougher from here."
It certainly does! The Tigers were to travel to Sully Buttes on September 7 will then play host to Sunshine Bible Academy on September 9. Next will be an invitational tourney hosted by Mobridge-Pollock on Sept. 11. Then the IHS Tigers will go on the road to face always tough Warner on September 14.
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