BROOKINGS The Brookings Bobcats played well in a comeback bid in the first set and a victory in the second set, but Sioux Falls Roosevelt ultimately proved to be too much, winning in four sets in a match at Brookings High School on Tuesday night.
The night got off to a tough start when Roosevelt opened an 11-5 lead in the first set, but Brookings went on an 8-3 run to cut the lead to 14-11. The Roughriders extended their lead to 18-13 after a timeout but Brookings rallied again to make it a 23-21 set before Roosevelt scored a 25-23 victory.
While the Bobcats didnt win the first set, they carried the momentum into the second. Brookings led 15-10 in the early going before Roosevelt scored four straight points to cut the lead to 15-14 but the Bobcats held off the Riders to win the second set 25-20.
Brookings volleyball coach Erinn Thomas believed the Bobcats success was due to their improvement in the serve receive, which saw Brookings post a 48 percent side-out rate.
Thats a great number for us, Thomas said. We focused on it quite a bit in practice the last week and it was great to see it translate on the court.
The Bobcats created a new match with their win in the second set but the Roughriders took a 19-12 lead to open the third set. Brookings showed more resilience by scoring six straight points to cut the lead to 19-18 but Roosevelt scored seven straight points to clinch a 25-18 victory.
In the fourth set, the Roughriders jumped out to a 14-8 lead and never looked back, scoring the final six points of the match to earn a 25-15 victory.
We were able to get our offense going at times but as we got into sets 3 & 4, we got timid, gave them too many easy balls and did not make the best decisions offensively, Thomas said of the final two sets. We had too many dropped balls on our side too and those are momentum killers.
Rylee Thompson led Brookings with 13 kills on the night. Macy Even had nine kills. Lydia Walker and Arielle Ferrell had four kills each.
Kymber Buys led the Bobcats with 18 assists while Kamryn Streich had 10 assists. Morgan Norgaard had three assists and Logan Smidt had one assist.
The Bobcats had 10 aces including four from Thompson. Streich had a pair of aces while Buys, Even, Norgaard and Tess Burns each had one ace.
Even had 17 digs and Norgaard had 11 digs. Buys had eight digs, Logan Smidt had six digs, Streich had five digs, Thompson had three digs, Walker had two digs.
Walker had two block assists. Buys and Ferrell each had a block assist.
The loss dropped the Bobcats to 10-12 on the season ahead of this weekends trip to the western part of the state to compete in the East/West Tournament on Friday and Saturday.
We are over the halfway point and made it through the toughest portion of our season, Thomas said of the upcoming trip. I am excited for a road trip out west and to compete against a few opponents we havent seen yet.
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