Lady Cards have busy week on the court
RANDOLPH — After two triangular tournaments last week, the Randolph Lady Cardinals stood at 11-14 as they awaited their Lewis and Clark semifinal match Monday against Laurel-Concord-Coleridge.
Randolph fell 2-1 to Wynot (25-21, 19-25, 25-20) and beat Plainview 2-1 (17-25, 25-20, 30-28) last Tuesday before losing twice at the Pierce County Tournament 2-1 to Osmond (23-25, 25-18, 25-22) and Plainview 2-0 (25-21, 25-22).
“In the Wynot game we played really well at times and all the sets were close the whole way,” Randolph head coach Rob Engel said. “We had a chance in the first and third sets with the score tied 20-20 but they made a better push at the end. In the second set, Bailey Beal went down with an injury, but the rest of the team did a great job to rally and win the set.
“The Plainview game was wild, and close the whole night, we were able to battle back and win a really exciting third set 30-28.”
Ella Scott (six kills) and Emma Munter (five kills) led the way against Wynot, while Beal (10 kills, three blocks) and Erin Engel (17 assists) came up big against Plainview.
“The Pierce tournament wasn’t our best performance,” Coach Engel said. “We struggled all night and although we were close in all the sets, we weren’t able to come together and get points when it mattered.
“It’s always hard to play the same team twice back-to-back and Plainview is a good passing team with some good hitters.”
Beal had 10 kills against Osmond while Scott added 16 digs and Erin Engel distributed 19 assists against Osmond.
Defensive specialist Grace Nordhues who said the team would be “going on a bear hunt” against LCC at the conference opener, was proud that the team had played well enough to get the bye into the semifinal.
“We had worked very hard and there were still a couple games we had lost that we shouldn’t have,” Nordhues said. “We were excited to get this game against Laurel. Lately, when we mess up in a part of a game or a bad patch, we shake it off better and get to the next point coming up. We don’t worry about the mistakes. We’ve been working on that.
“We still need to work on our teamwork and worry about our play and focus on the game and getting the points then and not worrying about the past while moving forward. I think we can get our heads up and I believe in us to go very far.”
Rob Engel expected a battle against the big hitting Lady Bears at LCC as the subdistrict tournament is set to begin next Monday.
“We will most likely be traveling to Humphrey St. Francis to take on Riverside in the first round,” he said. “For us to have success in the post season, we will have to really find our energy and make sure that we can limit our errors. All season we have been successful in games we have had a good attitude and limited the points that we give the other team.
“Serving and serve receive is critical to every team at every level and we will need to focus on that.”
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