Wildcats' Girls Volleyball Team Wins Another

The girls’ volleyball team beat Bradley Tech 3-0 in a nonconference match Tuesday at USM.

After the match, USM’s head coach Sue Baker said, “The improved passing tonight was because of the focus at practice yesterday. We spent the entire practice session working on getting our passes to target and not just being satisfied with putting them in play.”

The training effort was worthwhile as the Wildcats clearly out-matched the visiting Trojans. USM won each of the three games by at least 12 points, widening the scoring gap in each successive game. The final game scores were 25-13, 25-11, and 25-6.

Bradley Tech had only one lead all night. They took a 2-0 lead in the first game.  Then USM sophomore Amber took the ball to serve. Baker’s serves confounded the Trojans and the Wildcats zoomed ahead 9-2. The Trojans moved closer, pulling to within 2 points at 13-11, but that was as close as they could get. The Wildcats pulled away on senior Elizabeth Bodalski’s serves and lead 19-11. After USM dropped a point, Baker took the serve again and put USM on the edge of victory with three aces. Sophomore Erika Ballentine finished the game with an ace to give USM the first game.

Baker began the second game with the serve, and she gave her teammates an early 12-0 lead. The Wildcats cruised to a 25-11 win on good serves, the passing they worked on, and a variety of shots over the net, some soft, some as hard as catapulted bricks by Baker, Bodalski, seniors Kelly Brethauer, Maddy Glaeser, Cori Walters, and Claire Reardon, and sophomores Lauren Gogan, and Guilia Ricci.

After the Trojans lost a point on the first serve of the third game, Baker took the ball at the service line. This time she ran off 14 straight points, giving the Wildcats an insurmountable lead. The Trojans called a time out and then stopped Baker’s serve to get a point. But they were only able to scratch out five more points and USM won the game and the match.

The leaders for USM were Baker, who had 18 ace serves and 11 assists; Reardon, who had seven aces, four kills and five digs; Gogan, who had five kills; and Brethauer who had three kills and eight digs.

Coach Baker was pleased with the evening’s events; “All the girls got to play in the match. They worked hard and did the job they needed to do.” 

USM starts its Midwest Classic Conference North season at Lake Country Lutheran in Hartland at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday. Coach Baker said, “It’s a big conference match up right from the start.”