During the month of October, the West Prairie and Rushville-Industry High School varsity volleyball squads had won nine of the 12 respective matches.
On Monday evening in Colchester, it was the visiting Rockets who continued their upward trajectory, flying past the Cyclones 25-18, 25-16.
It was the home finale for West Prairie (24-11), along with “Madison Adams Night” as the lone Cyclone senior was honored prior to the varsity contest.
Meanwhile, RIHS improved to 17-12.
“They played very well and they’re a good team,” said West Prairie coach Drew Snyder of RIHS.
“I don’t think their record is fully indicative of how good they are,” he added. “I think they had a rough start to the year and I know they had some injuries they were battling through.”
“But they’ve really righted the ship and they’re playing really well right now,” he added.
It was one of the better efforts of the season for the Rockets.
“We had a goofy schedule last week playing only one match on Tuesday,” said RIHS coach Leigh Bickerman. “With three days of practice and other things, I wasn’t sure how we were going to come out.”
“But I felt like we were pretty consistent from start to finish,” she added. “We definitely took control from the beginning.”
Stats for West Prairie included the following: Alyvia Barkley – 5 kills and 7 digs Madison Adams – 5 kills Niah Zimmerman – 5 kills Josie Hodges – 15 set assists and 7 digs Stats for the Rockets included the following: Caitlyn Fleck – 5 kills and 2 digs Jocelyn Esther – 4 kills Naomi Willis – 2 kills, 6 digs and 11 set assists Devin Vogler – 3 kills and 2 digs Hencie Mordiva – 2 total blocks Jaycee Reynoso – 2 total blocks The contest was a far different result from their first meeting at the Suns Classic in Augusta back on Sept. 5.
West Prairie rolled to a 25-14, 25-10 victory in a match that saw Willis injured early on and Esther not with the team that day.
“There were some different variables that we didn’t have the first time,” said Bickerman. “I definitely feel like we’re headed in the right direction so to speak for the next couple of weeks.”
“We knew that this was going to be a tough game coming in and we came off a hard one the other night (a loss against Illini West),” said Snyder. “We just didn’t execute the best.”
“The first ball pass was a little bit of a struggle there for a minute,” he added. “And we were making some system errors and some mental mistakes that we need to get better at.”
“We’ll hopefully right the ship and get ready for (regional play).”
Up 10-8 in the opening set, RIHS got kills from Reynoso, Fleck and Esther to build the lead to 13-8.
A Zimmerman kill slowed the Rocket momentum temporarily, but kills from Esther and Vogler, along with a Cyclone blocking error, allowed RIHS to build a 16-9 advantage.
West Prairie got no closer than three points the remainder of the set.
The second set saw the Rockets blast off, scoring eight points in a 10-point span in building a 10-4 lead. As was the case in the first set, the Cyclones got no closer than three points the rest of the way as the Rockets glided their way to the sweep.
“One thing that we’ve been pretty good at all year is minimizing big runs by our opponents,” said Snyder. “We did not do that well (this match). We got into holes and we got into ruts and we had a hard time digging out of them.”
“It was quite the challenge for us,” he added.
“We definitely have a lot of things we need to work on,” said Snyder. “In practice we’re going to try to accomplish as much of that as we can to get better for next week.”
West Prairie will head to Augusta next week for Illinois High School Association Class 1A Regional play.
Action begins Oct. 26 with No. 8 seed Lewistown (19-15) playing No. 9 seed Mendon Unity (10-19).
On Oct. 27, No. 4 seed West Prairie will play No. 13 seed South Fulton (5-21) before No. 5 seed Triopia/ Virginia (16-16) faces No. 12 seed (Bluffs) West Central (7-23).
The semifinals are scheduled for Oct. 28 with topseed Southeastern (31-3) facing the Lewistown/ Mendon Unity winner with the winners of the Oct. 27 matches squaring off in the second semifinal.
The title match is set for Oct. 29 with the winner advancing to sectional play at Concord Triopia on Nov. 3.
