Lady Rebels see heavy diet of 1A competition in Kaycee
The Riverside Lady Rebels did well last weekend at a non-conference tournament in Kaycee, where they went head to head with Midwest, Fort Washakie, Rock River, Upton, and Encampment.
Friday, the Rebels won in two against Midwest, 25-7, 25-14. They also played Rock River and beat them in two sets, 25-13, 25-14. In their final match of the day, they defeated Fort Washakie, 25-7, 25-2.
Saturday the Rebels came close in their match with Upton with scores of 25-18, 24-25, 14-15. They won the first set and came extremely close in the other two but just missed the mark. The Rebels lost to Encampment as well in another hard-fought match up, 25-22, 24-25, 9-15.
The team made 87.3% total serves, with Brooklynn Paxton serving at 91.3%, Kadence Powell at 90.5% and Vinaya VanderPloeg at 90.3%.
VanderPloeg had 16 aces, Paxton 11, and Kennedy Bassett seven. Bassett also had 113 assists over the course of the weekend. Paxton led in digs with 40, VanderPloeg had 39 and Johnna Clifford had 20.
VanderPloeg had 53 kills, Paxton 51, and Varissa Olsen was credited with 18.
“The girls worked hard, playing as a unit throughout the weekend. We are definitely seeing growth but know there are areas we want to continue to focus on moving forward. All sets went to just 25 or 15, so teams had to adjust to the mindset that opponents didn’t have to win by two. Unfortunately, we ended up losing half of our sets on Saturday by just one point. We will work on being strategic while staying aggressive to finish out close sets,” commented Coach Smith.
“We have two important conference matches this weekend against Burlington and Dubois. We play in Burlington Friday and Dubois comes to Basin Saturday.”