by Mari Radtke
“Coming off of a good outing at the Spencer tournament, we were not ready to play when we arrived,” said South O’Brien head volleyball coach Amy Schmidt. “We were tight, behind on defense and unfocused to play up to our abilities.  We gave up 18 unforced errors in set one and 23 in set two. If we want to win any match, we have to limit these errors to a far smaller number.” Westwood took the match handily, 25-15 and 25-23.
“In match two, we faced MVAOCOU. We were able to refocus and play better. We did give up a high number of unforced errors, but were able to push through and come from behind to win set one,” commented Coach Schmidt. “Raegan and Chloe had a much better match offensively. Both Reese and Cassidy played well for us defensively. Consistency will be key down the road. Consistency in all areas.” It was a good set with a final score of 25-23.”
Freshman Greta Hustedt led South O’Brien assists with all 15 of the Wolverines’ assists, 6 digs and .5 ace serves out of the team’s 2. Despite being outscored, the Wolerines posted 18 kills out against the Rebels’ 17.
Tori Schueller has the only solo block for the Wolverines out of a total of 5 with 2.5 block assists going to her credit. The Rebels also had just 1 solo block. They managed a total of 3 blocks.
“I am confident that the girls will respond in a more positive manner from here on out,” said Schmidt.
And they did. South O’Brien took the first set against the MVAOCOU Rams in a 26-24 thriller. The team followed up that success with a clear show of settling in. The outscored the Rams 25-16 in game 2 to claim the second match of the evening.
Greta Hustedt once again led assists with 20 out of a team contribution of 24. Junior Raegan Plagge earned 5.5 kills out of the Wolvierine 25. Taylor Wulf’s block came with a team total of 3. Reese Farquhar got low marking 6 digs keeping play alive. The Wolverine serve performance was great. they put 40 out of 49 attempts into play for an efficiency rating of 81.6% and a team total of 6 ace serves.