HURON On coronation night during Hurons homecoming week, the queens on the court were the ones wearing orange long sleeves and black Spandex as the Huron Tigers swept the Aberdeen Central Golden Eagles 25-22, 25-21 and 25-21
Huron coach Josh Lien during the pregame stated that he and his staff had worked with some new and different looks. Those new looks didnt immediately pay dividends as the Golden Eagles were in good hitting position. After two consecutive kills for Lauryn Burckhard and a Huron hitting error, the visitors held a 7-3 lead.
The Tigers got a hitting error on the Golden Eagles, and then the different lineups began to really impact the Aberdeen hitting game, as they had five hitting errors during a 12-2 Huron run that was capped by a big swing from Hurons Aly Davis.
Aberdeen was not done, and tough serving and some diverse hitting from the Golden Eagle front line got them back within 19-18, but Huron quickly came back and used strong hitting and team blocking at the net to get to set point, and then setter Jencie Goergen had a quick set kill to give Huron the 25-22 win in the first set.
Lien was effusive with praise for his setter.
The girls really did a great job on serve receive, and that keyed us, Lien observed. We got the ball consistently to Jencie (Goergen), and she made very good decisions all night long.
Jaelee Olsen got the first kill of the second set, and then the two teams exchanged points, tied at every point until Huron found themselves trailing 7-6 and rattled off three straight kills, two from Davis and one from Arian Pfitzer. Huron would never trail again.
A tight back-and-forth set keyed on Huron continuing to put Aberdeen out of system, drawing 11 hitting errors on the Golden Eagles during the match. After opening the second set with the first kill, Olsen slammed the ball down to end the set with a 25-21 Huron victory.
Olsen again opened the set with the first point. Unforunately, Aberdeen then went on a three-point run, but trailing 3-1, Olsen took over the game, with four of the next five points, as she dominated the net. Burckhard ended the run with a kill and helped her team to get back the lead at 10-9.
The two teams then went back and forth until Olsen again took over, garnering two kills and forcing a hitting error on the Golden Eagles to allow Huron to take a 15-13 lead. The teams traded a number of errors in the back half of the match, but after a Lien timeout when Aberdeen crept within 23-21, Huron came out and finished off the match with two big hits to earn a 25-21 set win and a clean sweep of the match.
Huron moves to 3-7 behind 12 kills for Davis and 10 kills for Olsen, seven of them in the final set. Pfitzer added seven kills. Aberdeen, who had been receiving votes in the most recent poll, falls to 6-3. Burckhard had 10 kills for the Golden Eagles.
Aberdeen swept the lower levels, winning the junior varsity match by scores of 25-17, 16-25 and 17-15. The Golden Eagles took the sophomore match, 25-21 and 25-14.
Coach Lien was extremely proud of his team putting things together for the win.
Its one thing to put together a good game plan, Lien remarked. Its another thing to execute it. They executed it very well tonight.
He continued, I feel like we are much better than our record shows. Today, we finally matched all those things together and showed what we can do.
Huron will travel to Brookings on Thursday.
Leave a Reply