The Crookston Pirate Volleyball team led in just one set as the Hawley Nuggets cruised to a 3-0 (25-8, 25-11, 25-14) in a non-Section match played in Hawley.
In the first set, Crookston tied the match at 3-3 with a block by Allie Love. Hawley responded with a 5-0 run capped off by an ace giving the Nuggets an 8-3 lead. Kasey Cwikla stopped the run with a kill for the Pirates, but Hawley continued to pull away winning the final nine points of the set to close out the first set 25-8. “I think that they came out very strong and they have a very good middle that we had timing issues with to start,” explained Crookston head coach Ashley Stopa. “I think we did a really good job to figure out the timing as the set went on.”
Sitting tied at 1-1 to start the second set, Hawley won the next eight points with Maria Vetter holding serve until the Nuggets lead expanded to 9-1. A service error followed by three straight attack errors from Hawley brought Crookston back within 13-7. The Nuggets won eight of the last nine points securing a 2-0 match lead with a 25-11 second set win. “We were on our heals (in the first set), so we just had to make sure we came out strong in the second set,” noted Stopa. “We eliminated some of our errors, which resulted in a little bit of a string in production during our second set.”
Hawley opened the third set with a 6-3 lead. Crookston won the next six points to take a 9-6 lead. A Hawley ace tied the set at 10-10 before an Allie Love kill gave the Pirates an 11-10 lead. Back-to-back Nuggets errors gave Crookston a 13-10 lead, but Hawley won fifteen of the final sixteen points in the match to close out the sweep with a 25-14 third set win. “We did a really good job of pushing in the first few points,” added Stopa. “It was tied for quite some time, but we got in just a serve-receive funk where we kept passing, but couldn’t find the court on the other side of the net. We started very strong, and we were actually up by a few points, but at the end of the match we just made too many errors.”
While the final result wasn’t what she had hoped for, Stopa was pleased with how her team improved during the match, “I think that we adjusted well for the block. The girls were good defensively. We made sure we got a lot of digs. It was just hard to find the court on the other side.”
Crookston falls to 2-11. The Pirates return be home on Thursday night to host the Barnesville Trojans at 7:15 P.M. on KROX. Hawley improves to 10-1.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| CROOKSTON | 8 | 11 | 14 |
| Hawley | 25 | 25 | 25 |
For Crookston
Kills – Mallorie Sundeen – 2, Emma Boll – 2
Blocks – Mallorie Sundeen – 1, Kasey Cwikla – 1, Allie Love – 1
Assists – Emily Funk – 4
Digs – Danielle Boyle – 4, Emma Boll – 3, Emily Funk – 3
