RAPID CITY — The Huron Tigers earned a split on their West River volleyball trip, blanking the Rapid City Central Cobblers in straight sets Saturday afternoon at Naasz Gymnasium, 25-14, 25-15 and 25-23. Huron improves to 6-10 with the win while RCC falls to 10-11.

After seeing a 2-set lead evaporate against RC Stevens on Friday night (see story below) the Tigers were poised and confident against the Cobblers. RCC forged a quick 3-1 lead before Huron began chopping away. Chloe Carr ignited a mini-rally with a kills, before Addy Knight scored on back-to-back big kills, setting the tone for the first set.

The Cobblers would score, only to watch Huron run three, four or five points and continue to pad its lead. A Knight kill, combined with an ace by Jencie Goergen, a kill from Samantha Mangmoradeth and back-to-back Knight aces set Huron up with a 12-6 lead and prompting a Cobbler timeout.

Out of the break, Ady Knight got a kill, then Goergen quick set a kill and Huron was off to the races.

The lead reached 10 points late, before a pair of kills by Knight set the stage for Mangmoradeth to close out the set with a kill and the 25-14 win.

The second set followed the same script. The Tigers were behind early, before a Carr kill and back-to-back aces by Davis and two more Carr kills set Huron up 9-5. The Cobblers responded as Aurora Prudich kept RCC in the match with a pair of kills, but Aurora Dreyer sandwiched kills around a big swing by Mangmoradeth for a 13-9 Huron lead at the midway point.

After exchanging points, Davis bookended a kill by Goergen with two more and a 17-11 lead and the Cobblers never got closer.

Down the stretch it was Knight and Mangmoradeth doing the heavy lifting with Mangmoradeth again closing the set with a kill, 25-15.

Looking to close out the match early, Huron jumped out to a 7-3 lead, keyed by kills from Knight and Davis and a handful of Cobbler hitting errors. Prudich rallied RCC, but three kills from Dreyer, mixed in with a Davis block/kill and a Maddy Jurgens ace established a 12-5 Huron lead.

The Cobblers began chipping away at the Tiger lead, led by Purdich and some hitting errors that Huron had not seen in the first two sets. Dreyer had a kill that made it 21-18 for Huron, but kills from Abrianna Harvison and Abbie Conroy for RCC cut the lead to one. Davis responded with a kill and then stroked an ace serve to push the lead to 23-20 for the Tigers, but back-to-back errors allowed the Cobblers to stick around. Goergen got a quick-set kill that put Huron on match point. A service error gave a point back to the RCC, but Mangmoradeth - who else - applied the finishing touch to the set and the match with her eighth kill of the match.

Davis led the Tigers with 11 kills and added two aces in the match, while Dreyer had eight kills. Knight added seven kills and also had four aces, while Goergen had five kills.

Prudich led RCC with 9 kills on the day.

Huron is back on the road Tuesday night, traveling to face Sioux Falls Roosevelt, before hosting Sioux Falls Jefferson on Thursday night in the annual Breast Cancer Awareness match, back in the friendly confines of Huron Arena.

Lower level action on Saturday found Huron dominant as well. Huron won the Sophomore match 25-21, 21-25 and 15-8, won the 9th-grade A match 25-12, 26-24 and the 9th grade B match 19-25, 25-20 and 15-10. RCC managed to avoid a sweep, as it snuck out a 23-25, 25-19, 15-4 win in the JV match.

R.C. Stevens 3, Huron 2 (Friday night)
RAPID CITY — The Huron Tigers got off the bus ready to play, but in the end, the strengths of the Rapid City Stevens Raiders proved to be too much to overcome, as the Tigers dropped a 3-2 match as the Raiders came back for the win.

Set scores for RCS were 23-25, 18-25, 25-23, 25-18 and 15-12.

“We played very well against a good team,” said Huron coach Josh Lien. “We knew that we had an opportunity to get at them early - and we did - and then there were three very competitive sets that Stevens was able to win.”

Huron got off the bus ready to play, earning 25-23 and 25-18 wins in the first two sets.

“The girls played well and played with confidence in the opening sets,” Lien said. “Stevens made some adjustments and we made some adjustments and the last three sets were just very competitive from both teams.”

Stevens rallied to take sets three and four, by the same 25-23, 25-18 scores, setting up a winner-take-all fifth set.

RCS opened a lead, but Huron came back and the score was knotted at 10-10, before the Raiders eked out the win.

“I’ve said many times that for us to compete, we need to win the battle of the aces - we need more aces than our opponent - and we have to have our hitters with positive numbers. We did both tonight, and we were right there at the end.”

Huron was led for the second straight match by Aly Davis and Samantha Mangmoradeth, with 11 kills each. Lien said that Chloe Carr had a “coming out party” and notched a varsity career high nine kills and setter Jencie Goergen had eight kills.

“We asked Jencie to be more aggressive and she responded,” Lien said. “Any time we can have four different players with eight or more kills, we are going to be okay. Maddy Jurgens had three aces as well, to help us win the serve game.”

Lien also noted that pending confirmation, Hylton Heinz likely set a new HHS single-game digs record with 52 of Huron’s 102 digs against Rapid City Stevens.

Stevens improved to 13-6 with the win while Huron fell to 5-10.