With Big Sky conference bragging rights on the line, Sherman and South Wasco County played at a high level in a hard-fought, four-game volleyball battle Thursday night in Maupin.
In reality, this match could have gone five games, but the Redsides won the second set by a 28-26 score and completed the winning trend with a 25-17 marker in the fourth game to keep their league record unblemished at 2-0.
“I think it is consistency. In the past, we have been really close to winning games and we have lost because of one small area and tonight, we didn’t have that one small area and that helped us get a huge win,” said senior hitter, Molly Foreaker. “We just got to focus on doing the little things right every time and we should win more matches like this.”
The Redsides took an early advantage in this match with a 25-17 winner in the opening tilt.
In the second set, Sherman bounced back to take an 18-11 lead at one point, but the Lady Redsides reversed course and went on a 7-0 rally capped by a block.
Sherman then took advantage of a kill by Makenzie Blaylock, followed by a Redside miscue to regain the lead at 23-19.
Down the stretch, there were four ties and four lead changes, so with the score tied at 26-all after a Janet Guzman kill, the Huskies then had a serve go long and then a double-hit violation to end the second set 28-26 to move SWC ahead in the match, 2-0.
Sherman overcame another deficit in the third game, but managed a 14-8 run to win by a 25-18 mark to set up a pivotal fourth game.
South Wasco County had all of the bounces go its way in the finale before they completed a late run for a 25-17 win to clinch the match. “What they did really, really well was not string together errors,” Redside coach Donna Barton said of the match. “When they did make an error, they bounced back really quickly and they kept fighting through everything. I don’t know if we have come back all year long, and we had to come back tonight in several of those sets from three or four points. This was the first time they have ever done it and that is a good step ahead for us.”
South Wasco County set a season-high at the service stripe by completing 94 serves out of 100 for 94 percent with 13 aces.
Leading the service game was Peggy Espeland, who went a perfect 14 of 14 and an ace shot. Added to that, senior captain Roxanne O’Neal was good for 13 for 13 with an ace.
Up front, the hitters rattled off a 103 for a 120 rate with 42 kills.
Junior hitter Baily Hogenkamp was the leader up at the net with a 34 for 38 connection rate and 14 kills.
Molly Foreaker tallied 25 for 31 shots with 12 kills, and Allie Noland slammed down five kills on 23 of 25 attempts.
“It does a lot for our confidence because we haven’t had a winning record so far, but we have been playing a lot of good teams,” Foreaker added. “They haven’t been bad games, so that helps that we won tonight.”
On the Husky side of the stat line, the senior tandem of Janet Guzman and Blaylock combined for 13 kills and four service aces. Guzman had six of those kill shots and a team-high four ace serves.
Sophomore libero Brittney Orendorff dove and lunged for 12 digs, and senior Meagan McKinney tallied four solo blocks.
Jasmine Wilson had a perfect night on her swing attempts for four kills, and the middle blocker also hammered down three blocks.
Husky coach Carrie Danchok liked what she saw from Wilson, a rising player, who has come along strong in her junior campaign.
“She has come around and she has played very consistently for us,” Danchok said.
“She talks a lot and is good at communicating with her teammates to get them going. She is playing over some pain right now, so she is showing leadership out there. It is non-stop with her and I think she is only going to get better and better before the season is over.”
The Huskies have a good stretch of upcoming games to make a move into the district playoff picture.
One thing the second-year coach wants is for her team to develop a hatred for losing so they can take a step in the right direction.
“We have the heart to make every point count. We have our consistent drive, but we can’t be afraid to make mistakes either,” the Husky coach said. “We got to be aggressive and we got to not only want to win, but get over this feeling that we have from this game and move on. We don’t want to repeat that feeling.”
The Redsides (2-8 overall, 2-0 league) look to keep their perfect Big Sky Conference record intact with a match in Spray this Saturday versus Mitchell/Spray (6-9, 1-3) at 1 p.m.
Sherman (3-11, 0-2) heads to Ione (7-9, 2-1) for a huge league showdown tonight at 5 p.m.
After that, the Huskies host winless Horizon Christian (0-10, 0-1) at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Moro.
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