A highly anticipated battle between two of the better high school girls’ volleyball teams in northeast Wisconsin may look one-sided by the final score, but there’s more to the story.
Manitowoc Lutheran, ranked ninth in the state in Division Three, swept the Howards Grove Tigers, ranked 18th in Division Two, 27, 25-19 and 25-23.
However, the Lancers trailed in each set, and in fact, they staved off a set point in the first set to rally and win.
They were down 14-10 in the second set when they went on a 10-0 run behind the pinpoint serving of senior Makiah Krause to go up 20-14 and never looked back and won the final two points in the third set to complete the victory.
Head Coach Lacey Behnke told SeehaferNews.com that her team has been battling a bit against themselves recently.
“We had some long talks this week about playing loose and having fun. Mistakes are going to happen and nobody is perfect,” she explained. “I reminded them to just live in the moment and being excited about what is happening at that time. You lose track of those things sometimes and forget to just enjoy life. Howards Grove played a great match against us tonight. They made some runs at us and didn’t panic. They hung in there and battled their way through.”
It was a special night for Lancer’s senior Makiah Krause, who recorded her 1000th career assist.
“It shows that my hitters are pretty good,” Krause noted. “It’s just not a number that means a lot to me because without my teammates, it’s not possible to achieve anything. There’s so much that must go right to get an assist or a kill such as the right pass or swing. I’m just super thankful.”
She joins senior Marissa Melhorn who recorded her 1000th career kill last Thursday in a victory over Elkhart Lake/ Glenbeulah.
The Lancers improve to 3 and 0 in the Big East and 14 and 6 overall, while Howards Grove slips to 2 and 2 in conference and 14 and 8 overall.
Manitowoc Lutheran returns to action Tuesday night when they host Kohler.