Next girl up
In the face of injuries and illness, the Spencer volleyball team continues to win
By Paul Lecker
Sports Reporter
SPENCER — Despite a slow start to the season and now fighting through injuries and illness that caused three players to miss Tuesday’smatch, the Spencer volleyball team keeps plugging along.
The Rockets won their third-straight Cloverbelt Conference East Division match Tuesday, sweeping Columbus Catholic even though two starters and another rotation player did not play.
Spencer was 3-1 at its home tournament to open the season and struggled to a 2-3 finish at the Marathon Early Bird Invitational before getting things rolling.
Since then, the Rockets are 3-0 as they seek to win their fourth-straight Cloverbelt East title, and they also won the title at the Auburndale Invitational with a perfect 6-0 mark.
“We started slow, but we were trying new things and mixing things,” Spencer coach Buff Heller said. “Now we kind of have our rotation and who’s doing what settled. The girls kind of know. With our DS (defensive specialist Lindsey Vaughan) and our setter (McKenzie Bainer) out, they came in and did a nice job against Columbus. The other night, when we went five (against Loyal/Granton on Sept. 17), they got really tired because we were short people. It helped to go three. They weren’t quite as exhausted.”
Seniors Macie Weber and Sydney Kind and junior Jenna Schober have been the leaders on the front line, and Courtney Buss, Vaughan, and libero Jenna Rogers solidify the back end on defense.
Juniors Rae Kind, Johanna Ellefson, and Liz Endreas have also been called upon to fill in roles.
With just three more Cloverbelt East matches on the schedule following Thursday’s contest at home against Gilman, the Rockets have been able to use their experience to their advantage.
“We lost a lot from last year, but at the same time, that group of juniors, we got them some playing time as sophomores last year,” Heller said. “It wasn’t a ton of playing time, but to get something coming in versus nothing is huge.”
Paul Lecker is publisher of MarshfieldAreaSports.com, a contributor to Hub City Times Sports. You can reach him by email at [email protected].
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