In their first conference competition of the season, the Lennox High School Oriole volleyball team swept the Tanagers in Vermillion, 25-11,25-11,25-10 on Monday night, Sept. 2.
“The squad has worked hard this pre-season to be able to play strong on the road and home alike,” said LHS head coach Vanessa Gabel.
The Lady O’s started tough and played that way through the entire match. The defensive specialists put up serve receive after serve receive into the setters’ hands which allowed the team to have multiple attacks from most passes. The kills were well distributed across all six hitters which put the Tanagers on their heels.
The Orioles were led in kills by outside hitter, Libby Kranz with ten kills and middle blocker, Addison Martz with eight. Both setters, Ella Grengs and Hannah Adney put up 13 assists. Middle blockers, Mallorie Bittner and Martz, each contributed three blocks while Kranz led dig statistics with 15, followed by defensive specialist, Andie Peters with 13.
“Overall, the girls dominated the net and passing game and coasted to a victory,” added Gabel.
Thursday night, Sept. 5, the Lady O’s traveled to a loud, packed gym at Tri-Valley to take on the Mustangs. The Orioles started out strong with tough serves, great serve receive and aggressive attacks. The first two sets were 25-15 and 25-12.
“Like happens so often in volleyball, it’s tough to have a strong third set after relatively easy first two sets,” said Gabel. “The girls let their guard down a bit and opened the door for Tri-Valley in the third set.”
The O’s were down 21-22, and Peters went back to serve. Over the course of a very long rally, Lennox had a total of four attacks and on the fifth “set” by Grengs, she dumped the ball over for a kill to win the rally to get the set tied at 22-22. An error hit by the Mustangs followed to put up Lennox 23-22. Ryan Hanssen took care of business with a strong, down the line kill shot to get to match point. Peters finished serving out the game, with a multiple possession rally that ended in a Mustang hitting error for the 25-22 win.
The Orioles were led in kills with Martz, who had a fantastic night hitting at a .500 with nine kills, followed by Grengs with seven. Lilly Meyer had a great passing night with a serve receive rating of 2.0 and a whopping 18 digs. Blocking was led by Bittner with three blocks while Martz had the most aces with six. The Lennox offense was evenly led by setters, Grengs and Adney, both contributing 13 set assists that terminated in kills for the team.
The Orioles were scheduled to host Canton on Monday, Sept. 9. Watch next week’s paper for complete details. On Thursday, Sept. 12 the team will travel to Madison. They will be at home again on Tuesday, Sept. 17 when they host Elk Point Jefferson.
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