HURON With a chance to climb back to .500 after a very successful October, the Huron Tigers instead ran into a buzzsaw in their first of three consecutive matches against top-five opponents. The Tigers fell to the fifth-ranked Mitchell Kernels 27-25, 25-17 and 25-23 Tuesday at Mitchell High School.
The match opened with the Mitchell hitting game in sync, led by senior setter Addie Siemsen as she dished the ball across the front line. After eighth-grader Nia Talley and senior Audrey Miller went back-to-back with kills to push the lead out to 11-6, Huron used their first timeout.
Siemsen and Miller each got kills out of the timeout to push the lead to 13-6, but thats when Huron began to claw back behind the directional hitting of Addyson Knight.
Knight would step back to serve and put the Kernels in tough position with strong serving, earning one ace and setting up multiple kills for the Tigers. An errant swing by Mitchell brought Huron even at 14-14.
Mitchell quickly got a quick set kill from Siemsen and a kill from Miller to push the Kernel lead to 16-14, but Aly Davis answered for Huron, slamming a kill through a block.
After a block/kill by Davis made it 17-17, Mitchell would go on a run that included a pair of Huron hitting errors and drew the teams second timeout. With the score 21-17, Arian Pfitzer got a big block for Huron and began a run.
When Knight landed a hit to get within 21-20, it was the home team Kernels calling timeout.
The timeout didnt slow down the Huron momentum, as a Knight kill gave Huron its first lead at 22-21. After a Mitchell point, Knight would tip the ball perfectly over the defenders for her sixth kill of the set and draw Mitchells second timeout with a 23-22 Huron lead.
The teams went back and forth from there, with each team having set point multiple times.
With Mitchell up 26-25, Davis had a big swing that the line judge ruled as going out of bounds off the Mitchell blockers.
The down official, without consulting the line judge, ruled that the ball never cleared the net and was out on Davis, giving Mitchell a controversial 27-25 set victory.
Davis came out firing in the second set and got the first point of the set, but Siemsen followed with two strong plays at the net to give Mitchell a 2-1 lead. Chloe Carr split the middle defenders to knot it at 2-2 early.
The teams traded points back and forth until it was 11-10 Mitchell after each team committed a service error. At that point, the teams had combined for five service errors.
Mitchell then took hold of the match, with Siemsen providing the first steady service for either team in nearly a full rotation, nailing a pair of aces and giving Mitchell a quick 3-0 run.
Davis would get a kill, but Huron hitting errors would provide the points for Mitchell as they pushed the lead out to 17-11, burning the second Tigers timeout.
Davis and Pfitzer went back-to-back with kills, but then a hit by Huron sailed long.
A Mitchell hitting error made it 18-15 in favor of the Kernels, but thats when they took over the match.
Big swings from Talley and multiple hitting errors by Huron led to a 5-0 run that staked the Kernels to a 23-15 lead, and it was simply a matter of figuring out the logistics from there.
Miller would slam down the decisive point to give Mitchell the second set, 25-17.
A hitting error by the Kernels led to Huron getting the first point of the match, but Huron errors would provide five of the first seven Kernel points as they jumped out to a 7-4 lead.
Huron would fight back behind a dominant hitting performance by Davis to tie the set at 10, but from that point Mitchell feasted on Huron errors, until they reached set point at 24-18.
Huron would have a last gasp, with a service error by Mitchell, two kills by Davis, and an ace by Jencie Goergen to get back within one at 24-23, but Miller finished off a strong night by sending match point off the fingertips of the Huron blockers to take the third set 25-23.
In the end, errors plagued Huron, according to coach Josh Lien.
We were almost too relaxed. We had more than 30 unforced errors tonight. When you give them that many points per set, you make it hard on yourself, Lien observed. I would have liked to see us play a little cleaner.
The Kernels advance to 15-5 behind 12 kills from Miller. Youngster Talley had nine kills.
Setter Siemsen had six kills at the net along with two service aces.
The Tigers fall to 9-11 despite a monster game from Davis, who had 18 kills. Knight had nine kills and two aces.
Carr and Pfitzer each had six kills.
Mitchell swept lower-level action, winning the JV match in three, 25-23, 22-25 and 15-13. The Kernels swept the sophomore match 25-15 and 25-19.
Huron travels to No. 2 OGorman next Tuesday to open the final week of the regular season before closing at home Thursday against No. Brandon Valley.
Lien says the team will focus on executing their game plan to close the season to prepare for the SoDak 16.
We knew who was going to score points. Thats half the battle, he said.
The other half is executing. They were better in execution tonight.
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