Cardinals dig up another win during Stanton tournament

RANDOLPH - The Randolph Lady Cardinals volleyball team is not going to leave the 2023 campaign without putting up a fight to the very last bump, set and spike.

The Lady Cardinals (3-17) had a busy week the previous seven days and came away winning one of five matches while showing improvement in some areas.

“We’ve made some adjustments to our rotation and we are now running a one-setter offense with Alexis Backhaus,” Randolph head coach Lyndsee English said. “We are also starting to play some younger players to see what they do, to see if they can bring a spark to the team. It’s always nice to get the younger girls experience on varsity.”

Randolph dropped a 3-0 (25-19, 25-10, 25-6) decision to Hartington-Newcastle as Jacey Bartels (six kills, seven digs), Ella Scott (13 digs) and Backhaus (nine assists) had some of the better Lady Cardinals showings.

They also fell 3-0 (25-12, 25-14, 25-16) decision at Bloomfield with Bartels (12 kills, 12 digs), Scott (18 digs), Backhaus (18 assists) and Katarina Greiner (three kills, three blocks) came up big.

In a quad Saturday, the Lady Cardinals fell to host Stanton 2-0 (25-15, 25-8) as Bartels (five kills, seven digs), Backhaus (10 assists) and Scott (13 digs) stood out. Later, they fell 2-0 (25-7, 25-14) to Plainview with Bartels (five kills), Scott (14 digs) and Backhaus (eight assists) leading the way.

The Lady Cardinals finished up by beating Bancroft-Rosalie 2-0 (25-12, 26-24) as Bartels (six kills, five digs, three aces), Backhaus (14 assists, three aces), Mabel Ngebeh (three kills) and Scott (seven digs) took care of business.

“Jacey has been playing very well,” English said. “She had a really good week and I feel like she’s coming on strong at the right time of the season. She’s been a consistent player for us all year and she’s definitely our go-to girl a lot of the time. One of Jacey’s best games so far was against Bloomfield.

“The girls have been playing better but now they need to push each other to get some more wins. Finishing the quad at Stanton with another win was a confidence booster that the team really needed at this point in the season. We will keep moving forward and taking it one game at a time. We aren’t looking ahead beyond this coming week.”

Ngebeh saw blips of excellence which made her feel good about her team despite some tough defeats.

“It seems to be like dependent on sets,” Ngebeh said. “We would have a really good set. We would push, try, and then we would like slump down to a level that we’re not really used to playing at. They came out strong this week and, they took us down, but I didn’t think we played too bad. (Against) Hartington Newcastle and Bloomfield, I feel like our hitting was really good.”

She also liked her team being willing to go for it.

“We were swinging at everything - every ball we got, we took a swing,” Ngebeh said. “It wasn’t even that good. We got kills off of tips. The back row was playing really good serve-receive. Our defense was on. Our passes were really good. We had a lot of young people step up and I think that they’re improving every day in practice and every game where they get thrown in.”

Ngebeh has continued to improve as a middle blocker which was a big ask with the graduation of Bailey Beal from last year.

“It was a bit concerning especially when I got transitioned out of outside to play middle,” she said. “It’s a whole different hitting game, more blocking. It was a tough transition, but I got there.”

Randolph played at a Plainview triangular Tuesday and then host their last home match Thursday against Osmond on a “Pink Out” night.