HCHS netters overcome rough spots, sweep Trojans

 HARLAN (Sept. 13) -- It wasn’t always pretty, but the Harlan Community volleyball team managed to even its Hawkeye Ten record at 2-2 here Thursday night with a three-set sweep of Atlantic, 27-25, 25-13, 25-22.
 HCHS (8-8 overall) survived a hard-fought opening set, then finished set two on a 15-4 surge. The Cyclones took a dominating 15-2 lead in set three before struggling down the stretch. Their last three points came on an Atlantic missed serve, a double-hit call and another missed serve at match point.
 Atlantic, which dropped to 6-16 overall and 0-3 inside the conference, finished with a kill efficiency of just .051, led by 11 kills from Alyssa Derby. The Trojans also served only three aces against seven errors.
 The Cyclones were paced by Olivia Petersen’s 11 kills and .500 efficiency on 19-of-20 attacking. Macie Leinen, Anna Ahrenholtz and Lauren Andersen had five kills each and Hayley Hopkins added four.
 From a hitting standpoint, HCHS followed up a strong second set - 14 kills and one error - with six kills and six errors in the third, which frustrated coach Willie Baughman.
 “I want us to play our best every time and we haven’t shown that consistently. We’ve gotten little phases of it,” he said. “We saw phases of it tonight too, especially in that second set where we played close to our best, but we’ve got to have that mentality of ‘we’re going to go out and we’re going to beat you.’ I don’t care if you’re the number one team in the state or at the bottom of the Hawkeye Ten.”
 Team serving was one of Thursday’s bright spots as the Cyclones finished with 13 aces against six errors. Ashley Hall served 18-for-18 with four aces while Haley Manz - a new addition to the serving rotation last week - was 15-for-16 with four aces.

 
 

 

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