The Badger-Greenbush-Middle River Gators Volleyball team is certainly one of the top teams in Northwest Minnesota, and in the state, and they showed it again on Monday night as they stayed undefeated in Section play by beating the Red Lake Falls Eagles 3-0 (25-17, 25-12, 25-16) in a match played at the Robert Matzke Gym. “They beat us tonight,” said Red Lake Falls Head Coach Nicki Gullingsrud. “Hopefully by the end of the season we will have everything in order and looking sharp and we can give them a run for their money. Hopefully we see them again.”
First Set
The Eagles got off to a good start in the set jumping out to a 9-4 lead. The Gators started off sloppy and Red Lake Falls took advantage adding on kills from Gabby Casavan and Lexi Swendra and an ace from Brea Derosier. “Brea did an excellent job tonight. She has a great court sense and she is just so smooth,” said Coach Gullingsrud. “She isn’t one of those flashy players. She just plays the game and she is solid.” Badger-Greenbush-Middle River slowly worked back towards a tie and eventually took the lead for the first time at 13-12 behind four kills from Kinsley Hanson. A 15-4 run by the Gators opened up a 19-13 lead. “At times we did well at executing and we didn’t put the ball down on their side,” said Coach Gullingsrud. “They capitalized on a lot of things. They are explosive and they have a lot of power.” The Eagles got another kill from both Casavan and Swendra, but it was not enough as BGMR took the first set 25-17.
Second Set
The Gators played much better in the second set leading the whole way except for when the teams were tied at 3-3. The Eagles kept it close for the first half of the set. The Gators got a strong output from Jade Reese with four kills early on, but RLF stayed in it with a couple kills from Greta Philipp, one from Casavan and another ace from Derosier and it was 10-7 in favor of the Gators. “We had some great runs and we did some things that I think we did some things that we didn’t think we could do,” added Coach Gullingsrud. “We gained some confidence tonight and hopefully that carries over and helps us believe we can play with anyone out there.” Then a 9-3, again in the middle of the set, broke things open for BGMR. “They run a quick offense and we told the girls this is one of the quicker offensive teams we will see,” explained Coach Gullingsrud. “This is a good test for our blockers to see how quick of a release they can get.” Jacey Wojchowski led the push with three kills. Another kill from Gabby Casavan and a Gator errors made it 19-12, but BGMR finished the set on a 6-0 run to win the set 25-12.
Third Set
Like the first two sets, Red Lake Falls hung around for the first half of the set. The teams were tied at 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Both sides had their share of errors early on and the Eagles were again led by Casavan and Swendra to keep the set tied. Philipp added another kill and two more errors on the Gators gave the Eagles a 10-7 lead. BGMR tied the set back up at both eleven and 12 before they went on another big run in the middle of the set. “We get through a couple rotations that need a little more fine-tuning… we can pick apart and say where are we the weakest in serve-receive and weakest in attacking,” explained Coach Gullingsrud. “We’ve been working on trying to fix that because there is some consistency in some of the lulls we have.” Two kills and an ace from Riley Gust and four kills from Jade Reese that included three consecutive kills and the final point of the set to give the Gators a 25-16 win. “We came ready to play it looked like and we weren’t so down when they went on some runs,” said Coach Gullingsrud. “I thought we did a much better job mentally tonight.”
Red Lake Falls drops to 6-9 this season. Badger-Greenbush-Middle River is now 17-3 this season.
1 | 2 | 3 | |
Badger-Greenbush-Middle River | 25 | 25 | 25 |
Red Lake Falls | 17 | 12 | 16 |
For Red Lake Falls
Kills – Gabby Casavan- 8, Greta Philipp- 5, Lexi Swendra- 4
Blocks – Lexi Swendra- 1
Assists – Brooklyn Cardinal- 16
Aces – Brea Derosier- 2
For B-G-MR
Kills – Jade Reese- 15, Riley Gust- 10, Kinsley Hanson- 8, Jacey Wojchowksi- 6
Blocks – Riley Gust- 3
Assists – Cassie Dahl- 39
Aces – Riley Gust- 3, Greta Lee- 2