Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website.
Time to read
2 minutes
Read so far

Cedar Catholic girls fall to 5-14 on the season

Posted in:

HARTINGTON — Things haven’t gone quite the way Cedar Catholic volleyball envisioned for this season, but a young squad continues to feel optimistic despite standing 5-14 following three defeats last week.

The Lady Trojans lost to Pierce 3-0 (25-20, 25-17, 25-15) in Hartington, and 2-0 to both O’Neill (29-27, 25-15) and Wayne (25-17, 25-22) at the Wayne Triangular.

Laney Kathol had 13 kills and four aces against Pierce while Katy Jones added 13 digs. Jones had 14 digs against O’Neill and Kathol had a team-high seven kills against Wayne as Jones collected 14 more digs.

“In the last week, we have played many close sets where we are losing by two and in extra points,” CCHS head coach Denae Buss said. “We are losing games but we are competing, and we are going to start winning these close sets and stringing them together. We just have to keep believing in our training. We are also playing some of the best competition around.”

The Lady Trojans will keep grinding to get some mojo going as they approach the postseason.

“This week, our serve receive has really started to look solid and having improvement,” Buss said. “Against Wayne, we also really had a solid hitting night also. We need to keep improving our serving down the stretch and being disciplined with our block and positioning on defense.

“The girls are really working hard, and the desire is there, just keep going one point at a time.”

Junior middle blocker Jozie Becker said that sometimes the team puts itself into a mental hole when the momentum goes against it and struggles to bounce back quick.

“I feel we practice every day and push ourselves and each other to improve and get better,” Becker said. “We need to strive to pull ourselves out of the hole quicker. We have been really working on passing in practice because it hasn’t been our strongest thing lately.

“We have also been working on serving. Those two things are what we have really tried to improve on. The connectivity of the Lady

The connectivity of the Lady Trojans is not the issue, according to Becker, but the team needs to learn to shake off the mistakes and focus on making the next good play.

Becker focuses on front row play and doesn’t serve or pass out of the back row, but she sees enough to have some potential suggestions to get the Lady Trojans trending in a positive way.

“If we could start with a good pass, we could get more kills and give us a chance to win,” Becker said. “It is a confidence thing. If we make a mistake, we have been working on not dwelling on it and move on to the next ball.

“Our season hasn’t gone exactly how we wanted it to go, bu every day in practice we talk about our end goal is to get to Lincoln again. I feel we can definitely go again if we just work on those things we need to work on.”

The Lady Trojans took on Battle Creek Tuesday and travel to Guardian Angels Central Catholic two days later.

Pierce 25 25 25

Cedar 20 17 15

KILLS Cedar - Laney Kathol, 13; Lexi Eickhoff, 4; Jozie Becker, 3; Grace Wortmann, 1; Olivia Hamilton, 1.

ACE SERVES Cedar - Laney Kathol, 4; KatyJones, 1; Annika Kuehn, 1.

BLOCKS Cedar - Laney Kathol, 2; Lexi Eickhoff, 2.

DIGS Cedar - KatyJones, 13; Laney Kathol, 9;Annika Kuehn, 8;Cady Uttecht, 7; Jordynn Steffen, 3; Grace Wortmann, 1; Meredith McGregor, 1; Lauren Bernecker, 1.

SET ASSISTS Cedar - Cady Uttecht, 9; Meredith McGregor, 5; Olivia Hamilton, 2; Grace Wortmann; 1; KatyJones, 1; Jordynn Steffen, 1; Jozie Becker, 1; Lauren Bernecker, 1

Cedar 17 22

Wayne 25 25

KILLS Cedar - Laney Kathol, 7; KatyJones, 3; Cady Uttecht, 3; Lauren Bernecker, 3; Jozie Becker, 2; Lexi Eickhoff, 2; Grace Wortmann, 1.

ACE SERVES Cedar - Meredith McGregor, 1.

BLOCKS Cedar - Lexi Eickhoff, 2; Jozie Becker, 1; Lauren Bernecker, 1.

DIGS Cedar - Katy Jones, 14; Jordynn Steffen, 12; Grace Wortmann, 3; Meredith McGregor, 2; Laney Kathol, 1; Cady Uttecht, 1; Olivia Hamilton, 1; Lexi Eickhoff, 1.

SET ASSISTS Cedar - Cady Uttecht, 9; Meredith McGregor, 7.

Cedar 27 15

O’Neill 29 25

KILLS Cedar - Laney Kathol, 4; Lexi Eickhoff, 3; KatyJones, 2; Jozie Becker, 1; Lauren Bernecker, 1.

ACE SERVES Cedar - Laney Kathol, 2; Annika Kuehn, 2.

BLOCKS Cedar - Lexi Eickhoff, 4; Laney Kathol, 2; Jozie Becker, 1.

DIGS Cedar - KatyJones, 14; Annika Kuehn, 8; Cady Uttecht, 5; Jordynn Steffen, 3; Jordynn Steffen, 3; Meredith McGregor, 3; Lauren Bernecker, 1.

SET ASSISTS Cedar - Cady Uttecht, 8; Meredith McGregor, 1.

Wahoo At  Ashland-Greenwood

Stay in the know!

To get news alerts on your cell phone, get the Cedar County News app in the ITunes store or  in the Google Play Store.