Lady Cardinals wrap up 2020 season in SubDistricts

RANDOLPH — If any team could say that its season was a victim of COVID-19, it would be the Randolph Lady Cardinals.

A promising volleyball season still wrapped up with an overall, solid resume, but a lot of “what ifs” will abound for years to come following the team’s 3-0 (25-23, 25-20, 25-17) sub-district defeat to Winside.

It came at the tail end of another quarantine that put many of the Lady Cardinals behind closed doors at home for the second time this year and even sidelined head coach Rob Engel.

Bailey Beal had nine kills and four blocks and Keely Pinkelman added eight kills, while Jaiden Taylor provided five blocks.

It all culminated in the Winside defeat and a season full of promise and chalk full of good memories compromised by a virus.

“We had opportunities in the first set, but just couldn’t quite get the big points at the end,” Engel said of the team’s final match of the season. “The second set started out great and we had a mid-set lead but weren’t able to finish out the set. The third set, you could tell the girls were running out of steam and played hard, but just couldn’t find their rhythm.

“It was strange for me to watch it from home but the coaches took over and got the team ready to go, and our senior leadership gave me confidence, they played their hearts out as they always do, but just weren’t able to minimize our errors and capitalize on theirs.”

It was a team that may have been playing on fumes, but they also had a heart big enough to ask plenty of questions of Winside before the curtain finally came down.

“There were so many positives this season: We swept our division in the conference, were division champions, we earned a great seed for the conference tournament, and we were able to win some big matches against teams with good records,” Engel said. “Those were all preseason goals of this team. Eventually, we were really hit hard by COVID. We had 12 players that missed time due to quarantine at one point or another, and some twice. The team came together well to overcome the people being gone, but in the end it was just too much. The first 20 games were a lot more indicative of this team than the last seven, when we were constantly fighting the virus.”

Randolph lost five of its last seven matches.

Yet, despite the battles with the bug, the program leaves 2020 behind and heads into the future full of promise.

“We are graduating a great bunch of seniors who have led the way this year, but they have left behind some promising players,” Engel said. “Next year, we will return four seniors, two played significant roles this year on varsity and another played a defensive role on JV and another will be back from injury. We will return two new juniors who have a lot of starting experience, and we had a couple freshmen step up and play important roles this year as well, so we will look to build upon the success of this year and keep improving.”

Engel had a senior class to remember and one of them, Emmalee Harder, believed this season of many opportunities was a success no matter how things ended up.

“We were all disappointed because we wanted the season to end at state,” Harder said. “We had to think about the positives rather than the negatives. Just being able to end it with our team was good, since we had almost everybody back. We had really good chemistry this year and the senior girls had been playing together since forever.

“We had good attitudes and no drama, so we were all able to play together really well. We had a lot of good talent and good athletes that were able to work well together on and off the court.”

Harder herself was the epitome of a senior class on which Engel came to depend.

“Emmalee had a really strong summer, and we were really excited about her going into the year,” Engel said. “Unfortunately, she had suffered an early season ankle sprain and it took her a long time to get healthy, but once she did, she provided a big block, and some good hitting out of the middle.

“Emmalee is one of those kids who isn’t the most vocal leader, but she is always providing an example for the younger players, and that’s why she was voted a captain this season. We will definitely miss Emmalee and all the seniors next year.”

Harder admits that the COVID-19 quarantines added their fair share of obstacles, but it also brought the Randolph girls together.

“That bond we formed, we had from having to pick ourselves up and our team up, and made us stronger,” Harder said. “Even though we didn’t end where we wanted to, our season wasn’t just about winning state. We started a bond that other teams will be able to carry on and we set the example for everyone else.”

Offensively, Beal led the way with 158 kills while Pinkelman chipped in with 127 and Taylor had 119 kills.

Gracie Eledge had a teamhigh 29 aces while Beal and Taylor finished with 62 and 32 blocks respectively.

On the defensive side of things, Eledge had 184 digs while Taylor finished with 179.

Erin Engel had 294 assists while Abby Schmit finished with 242.

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