The Crookston Pirate Volleyball team started slow and wasn’t able to recover in a 3-0 (25-11, 25-13, 25-21) loss to the Barnesville Trojans in a Section 8AA match played in Barnesville.
Barnesville jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the first set when Crookston struggled on the serve receive and the Trojans cruised the rest of the way to a 25-11 victory to take a 1-0 lead. “We came out slow,” said Pirate Coach Ashley Stopa. “We struggled on the serve receive and once we got a good pass, Barnesville blocked two attacks in a row. We couldn’t get anything going.”
In the second set, Crookston struggled on the serve receive and made too many errors and lost 25-13 and Barnesville took a 2-0 lead. “Our serve receive broke down,” said Coach Stopa. “Once we made a mistake it seemed like the next person was tentative and that carried over to everybody.”
Crookston changed things around for the third set and it worked. The teams were going back and forth with a couple of ties. Barnesville pulled away for a lead, but Crookston battled back to get within a point. Barnesville was able to hold off the Pirate comeback to win the set 25-21 for a 3-0 victory. “We changed things around with Sydney Anderson moving to the outside and she did a great job of blocking and had three blocks in the game,” said Coach Stopa. “We eliminated our errors in the third game and Barnesville starting making some errors. We played much better and saw some good things in the third game.”
Crookston drops to 7-10 on the year and will head back to Barnesville for their tournament on Saturday. Crookston will have Hawley, Battle Lake, and Frazee in their pool.
J.V. – Barnesville won 2-0 C Squad – Barnesville won 2-0
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| CROOKSTON | 11 | 13 | 21 |
| Barnesville | 25 | 25 | 25 |
For Crookston
Kills – Rachel Hefta – 9, Hailey Seaver – 4
Blocks – Sydney Anderson – 3
Assists – Kylie Solheim – 12
Digs – Rachel Hefta – 10, Emma Boll – 8
Aces – Emma Boll – 2, Jasmin Hanson – 1
