Sports
Stars hope they learned lessons in busy week
Tyler Ohmann
10/09/2012
It was a bumpy week for the Bottineau Stars volleyball team as they split a pair of matches during the week and then ended up falling in the consolation championship of the Des Lacs-Burlington (DLB) invite over the weekend.
“(There are) ups and downs yet, and you’d hope to have smoothed things out a bit more at this point of the season, and the inexperience shows at times,” said Bottineau head coach Steve Dunrud. “But it’s good to be in those situations, because you can learn a lot.”
The Stars began the week with a tough five-set loss to the Harvey Hornets in Harvey last Tuesday.
Bottineau began the non-district match by falling 25-19 to the Hornets. The Stars then rallied to win the next two sets (27-25, 25-22). The Hornets forced a fifth set with a 26-24 win in set four, and then closed out the Stars in the final set with a 16-14 victory.
Senior Katryna Hahn was the leader of the Bottineau offense with 25 kills. Juniors Bailey Neubauer and Danielle McDonald also played strongly. Neubauer led the team with 40 set-assists, while McDonald had 19 digs. The Stars served well in the match as Karlee McCloud was a perfect 26-for-26 from the service line and had five aces.
The Stars rebounded on Thursday as they hosted the Rugby Panthers for a District 11 battle.
Again Bottineau dropped the first set as the Panthers won 25-19. However, like Tuesday, the Stars rallied back. This time the Stars closed out the Panthers with three straight set victories (25-18, 25-19, 25-23).
Neubauer again set the pace for the Stars with 42 set-assists and also served well with a team-best five aces.
Hahn added 22 kills to help propel the Stars to their fifth district win.
“The district win on Thursday was nice,” Dunrud said. “We knew Rugby would play us tough, a district opponent, and a rival in other sports too, and I thought the girls came out and did a good job.”
Bottineau followed up their win on Thursday with a strong day in the first day of the DLB Invite.
The Stars started with a strong win over the host Lakers in the first round of pool play (25-18, 25-23). Hahn had team-high’s in digs (four), blocks (four) and aces (three).
Bottineau then used the momentum to split with a strong Ray team, winning set one 25-18, but falling 25-23 in the second set.
Neubauer played strongly for the Stars as she set the tone with 18 set-assists and had a team-best three aces.
Saturday did not begin as well for the Stars as they dropped matches to Thompson and Linton in straight sets.
“Against Thompson, they are one of those teams that just doesn’t give up points,” Dunrud said. “They make you earn all your points, and I didn’t think we played bad, we just had to play defensively.”
Junior Courtney Gallagher led the Stars with nine digs in the match.
Against Linton Dunrud said a lack of offense coupled with the strong play from Linton led to the loss.
“Against Linton, we just didn’t get any offense going,” Dunrud said. “They play very smart, and they too make you earn your points against them, and we didn’t do a very good job.”
Hahn had team-bests in kills (six) and digs (six) in the loss.
The 1-2-1 finishes in pool play put the Stars into the consolation bracket later on Saturday.
There the Stars’ resilience was again on display as they rallied off three straight wins to begin the consolation tournament.
It began with a straight set victory over Griggs County (25-21, 25-20).
Sophomore Stephanie Brenden had a team-best four aces in the victory.
The Stars continued their winning ways with a 25-22, 25-14 victory over Lisbon in round two.
Hahn crushed 13 kills in the win. She also had a team-high three aces.
Bottineau earned a shot at the consolation title with a win over Hazen in the third round. Dunrud thought the victory over Hazen was the Stars’ best round of the whole weekend with a 25-10, 25-13 two set sweep.
“I think our best match was against Hazen,” Dunrud said. “We really just controlled that match.”
Neubauer was again strong from the service line with a perfect 14-for-14 performance and four aces.
The Stars closed out the tournament by trying to gain some retribution from Linton, who beat them in pool play.
The two teams duked it out, but the punches came harder from Linton who won the match in straight sets 25-13, 25-21.
McDonald led the Bottineau attack with six kills, and also had a team-best seven digs.
Overall Dunrud felt the weekend was positive, and was satisfied with the Stars’ runner-up consolation finish.
“It was good competition, so it was good to get battle-tested, especially with tournament time coming up,” Dunrud said.
Facing unfamiliar opponents was something Dunrud said also will help the Stars moving forward.
“Hopefully when we see something from these teams, we will be able to adjust a lot quicker,” Dunrud said. “It definitely helped a lot because we did see a lot of different defenses against us.”
One improvement Dunrud said could have been better was at the service line.
“Serving wasn’t as good as we liked percentage-wise, but that was the only part of the game I thought we could have done better for the whole tournament,” Dunrud said.
Team leaders for the tournament included Neubauer (108 assists), Hahn (51 kills, 11 aces, 13 blocks), McDonald (34 digs) and Brenden (93 percent service game).
After the busy, bumpy week the Stars sit at 19-10 overall and are 5-1 in District 11 play.
Bottineau will host Velva at 7 p.m. on Thursday with what will likely be the No. 1 seed at the district tournament on the line.
“We have three really tough matches coming up with Velva, Rolla and Langdon before we get to the district tournament,” Dunrud said. “Hopefully we can put some of these things to use that we learned.”
Notes:
Season leaders through 80 sets include: Neubauer (618 assists, 67 aces), Hahn (274 kills, 47 blocks), McDonald (178 digs) and junior Rachael Fix (178-for-182 on serves, 98 percent).