Lady Cardinals get back to work after tough losses

RANDOLPH – The Lady Cardinals volleyball team continues to struggle in the win-loss column but the hope of making a push remains real this fall.

Last week, the Lady Cardinals (1-10) dropped a 3-0 decision at Neligh-Oakdale (25-15, 25-19, 25-17) and then fell at home against Wausa 3-0 (25-13, 25-13, 25-11).

"We were playing decently to start but seemed a little o from the beginning," Randolph head coach Lyndsee English said. "Once we made a few mistakes and got down, we couldn't find our way back. Neligh had an amazing outside hitter in Hailey Horstmann that we never did get a good block on and that left our defense wide open." Ella Scott (13 digs), Alexis Backhaus (11 digs, 10 assists) and Jacey Bartels (10 digs, five kills) led the way for Randolph.

Against Wausa, Bartels and Rylee Thelen had three and two kills respectively with Scott adding nine digs.

"We struggled again with blocking and with our serve receive," English said. "Passing in serve receive is so critical to run an eective oense and if our girls aren't passing well it sets the tone for the rest of the game. Then in the moments that we did have a decent pass, our setters and hitters didn't execute. And just

like the Neligh game, without a good block in front of Wausa's outside hitter, Hunter West, our back row was left wide open which makes it tough.

"These losses have been hard on the team. They always come back the next day eager to practice hard and work on things that need attention from the previous night. We know that we have only one win currently and are sitting at the bottom of our district. I do know that us coaches believe in these girls and know that they can play extremely well when they all show up physically and mentally." English said the team now just needs to buckle down and execute how to do the things they need to be a solid team.

"They have to not only work hard physically but they need to be ready emotionally and mentally. They need to believe in themselves and have confidence. They need to have knowledge of the game and make smart decisions and they have to be very competitive. "My goal is for all Randolph sports teams to get away from being OK with losing. You should have that desire in every game to go in and win. We have to stop focusing on doing things to be fair and go out to win every single time. These kids should be having more success than what is currently being shown. We are hoping we can turn things around and find some success as we get into the last half of the season." Thelen said the team's connection and combination play is improving as well as the team's overall togetherness. "We still need to do some work on our service, but that's getting better each day as we go on and we play more teams," Thelen said. "We played great as a team. We just couldn't make the push to win. But I know coming to the end of the season that the more games you play and the more times we have our stu figured out, we're gonna get there.

"We've been trying to bring up setters, and we're making our connections with the hitters. We just have to make all new connections because we lost a whole bunch of seniors last year, and it's a building year for us." Thelen noted the team is managing to navigate a challenging start due to a strong bond on and o the court.

"We definitely are keeping up a positive attitude even though some of the games aren't going the way we want," Thelen said. "But we always come together as a team, and we just move on and go get the next one. It's our friendship outside of school, like actually being friends with the younger classmates and that helps them to play.

"A lot of us on our team speak what we want to say, and we'll critique each other regardless."