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PREP VOLLEYBALL: Quick start fuels RTR

Knights use strong offense, hang on against Rebels

Photo by Jake Przytarski RTR’s Mckinley Schreurs sets the ball during their match against Murray County Central on Monday. The Knights defeated the Rebels 3-1.

TYLER – The Russell-Tyler-Ruthton volleyball team utlized an electric start in their opening two sets to help fuel them to a four-set victory over Camden Conference rival Murray County Central on Monday in front of their home crowd. Knights coach Daynica Brown was pleased to see her team put all of the pieces together to pick up the big win.

“This is what I’ve seen in practice, and we still can step it up and clean up our game, but in general each player stepped up and they played hard and battled hard,” said Brown. “MCC, they’re a good team, and so for us to come out the way we did, it was nice to see that and (it was) just (a) great overall game.”

Though the Rebels would pick up the first point of the match, it was the Knights who would generate the early momentum to start the opening set as they stormed out to a 5-2 lead. Not looking back, the Knights continued to dictate the pace of the set and kept the Rebels at arms reach without letting them generate any rallies. With the score at 24-17, RTR earned the final point and took the first set to go ahead 1-0.

Refusing to let up, the Knights went on a tear to begin the second set beginning with an opening five point run to pull ahead 5-0, then proceeded to go on another five-point run to make it 10-1. In the driver’s seat, the Knights cruised to a second set victory by a score of 25-11 to put the Rebels backs against the wall.

A much different Rebels team would show up in the third set as they needed to the win to stay alive in the match. The Knights pulled ahead early on, but the Rebels responded, and slowly but surely crawled back into the set after falling behind 13-8 and calling a timeout to regroup. More vocal and energetic the rest of the way, MCC flipped the script and began to pull away late after taking the lead at 17-16. Continuing to put the pressure on the Knights late in the set, the Rebels forced what would be the fourth and final set of the night with a 25-21 win.

Rebels coach Kate DeLong attributes the success in the third set to a more fired up and vocal team that helped create momentum.

“I think we continuted to communicate throughout the whole set,” said DeLong. “The girls were up, they were celebrating every great play, and when we do that we win games. Our deficit this year has been when we get down, we get quiet, and you can see that throughout the other three sets that we lost, when we got down, we got quiet (and) we started losing more and more points. So the third game or that third match it was just all about the momentum.”

Returning to form in the fourth set, the Knights battled back to reclaim control of the match in spite of the Rebels doing all they could to stop it. The two teams were neck and neck early on but the Knights got on some key runs that helped fuel them to a 25-19 set win and to take the match 3-1.

Leading the way for the Knights in the kills category was Kylea Baartman who finished with a game-high 14 followed by Haley Muenchow with 12. Kalleigh Carr led the way in aces with three on the night and Allie Christianson finished second with two. Carr would also go on to lead the team in digs with 21.

For the Rebels, Alyssa Groves was the team leader in kills with 12 followed by Elise Roher who finished with eight. Laney Brown had a game-high 29 digs followed by Montana Beckamann with 13. Shelby Christensen, Brianna Schmitz and Beckamann all tallied an ace.

Both teams return to action today as the Knights play host to Central Minnesota Christian while the Rebels hit the road to take on Southwest Minnesota Christian.

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