MVL grabs first win of

season, defeats Nicollet, 3-0

By BOB VARMETTE

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- It was a big improvement for the veteran Minnesota Valley Lutheran Chargers. It was just an improvement for the young Nicollet Raiders.

The Chargers found some offensive consistency and found their first win of the season. MVL swept Nicollet 15-2, 16-14, 15-6 Tuesday night in nonconference volleyball.

"I was happy with how we played, especially after the Sibley East contest," MVL coach Julie Detjen said. "There, we played very sluggish. Tonight, the girls had fun and they executed some things we've been working on."

Not so for the Raiders (0-2). Nicollet was plagued by errors that kept them from establishing any offensive consistency.

"We're pretty inexperienced this year," Nicollet coach Carmen Hanson said. "We've got a lot of young players. But we're improving, that's our goal."

The Raiders have three sophomores on their roster and started two of them -- setter Abby Olmscheid and middle hitter Kelly Zins.

MVL (1-1), meanhwile, had the luxury of starting five seniors and a junior. The experience advantage for the Chargers couldn't have been more evident than in the second game.

After pummeling the Raiders 15-2 in the first game, MVL fell behind. Nicollet led 14-6 and was one point away from leveling the match on the serve of senior Ashley McKinney.

A serve that went long started the unravelling. A passing error followed.

The teams exchanged sides out before the Chargers ran off nine straight points. Five of MVL's points came off Nicollet errors, including four passing errors on the serve of senior Rachel Olson.

"That's one of the things we've been practicing on -- serve receive," Hanson said. "The girls get frustrated. That makes it all fall apart. (Olson) was doing some good target serving, but our girls got pretty frustrated."

After the scare in the second game, the Chargers went back to domination in the third game. MVL got up 4-1 before Nicollet started a mini-rally, tying the score at 4 on three more MVL errors.

The Chargers then ran off seven straight points on the serve of junior setter Holly Enter to take control of the game. Enter got a pair of aces in the run. Senior Emily Buck and junior Kelsey Black recorded kills with Black blasting through the block of Raider sophomore Klarissa Swenson.

Nicollet got two points back to close the gap to 11-6, but Buck shot a kill to the Raiders' empty deep middle for a side out. Six-foot junior Jessica Beckendorf bounced a kill off the net into another empty spot in the Raiders defense to extend MVL's margin to 12-6.

Three hitting errors by the Raiders gave the Chargers their final three points to end the match.

"It went very well," said MVL senior outside hitter Danielle Kramer, who led the Chargers with seven kills. "We played really well as a team. Even when we got down we didn't give up."

The Chargers' regrouping at the end of the second game and in the third game made the struggles early in the second game moot. But the Chargers did struggle.

With the score tied at 6, the Raiders scored eight unanswered points. Olmschied got back-to-back kills in the string, one a shot to the Chargers' vacant back row and the other a soft kill at the net.

But five of the Raiders' points in the run came on MVL errors. Another was on a net violation.

"We stopped talking, we weren't communicating," Kramer said. "I don't know what it was. Sometimes, we have that problem."

Added Detjen: "It was the communication, that was the key. They just weren't doing it. It was ugly."

Black and Buck each added four kills for the Chargers. Olmscheid led the Raiders with seven kills and senior Beth Hendrycks added five kills.

Nicollet will play in the Mankato Loyola tournament Saturday. MVL will host Buffalo Lake-Hector Thursday.