Photo by Jake Przytarski YME’s Madison Hinz passes the ball during their match against Wabasso on Monday. The Sting defeated the Rabbits 3-0.

GRANITE FALLS - The Yellow Medicine East volleyball team earned its fourth victory in the span of five games on Monday thanks to a well-rounded effort on offense and defense to defeat non-conference foe Wabasso in straight sets.

YME coach Alyssa Johnson was especially pleased with the grit shown by her team in battling back from a deficit in the first set.

“I think that we came out and we were making some good, aggressive plays off the bat,” said Johnson. “We were able to fight our way back from a deficit in game one, which isn’t something that we can always do, but the girls fought really hard. We made a lot of scrappy plays and I was happy with our defense.”

Wabasso coach Barb Johnson acknowledged that the team struggled behind the service line and with hitting.

“Overall, I don’t think we had our best night,” said Johnson. “We didn’t serve very well, we had a lot of errors from the service line and hitting as well. YME played really scrappy, they had a pretty good game and we just didn’t respond.”

In the opening set of the match, the Rabbits put their best foot forward with a 7-3 run highlighted by three straight aces by Halle Huhnerkoch. From there, the two teams traded points before Wabasso was able to pull ahead again and looked to take the set with a 23-19 advantage down the stretch. The Sting dug deep, however, and responded with a 6-0 run fueled by an ace by Yansi Flores and a block by Shelby Mortenson to win the set 25-23.

Hoping to even up the match at one set apiece, the Rabbits got off to a fast start in the second set and held a 4-1 advantage early on. Unfazed, the Sting offense surged to take a 7-6 lead that they never relinquished in spite of multiple attempts by Wabasso to battle back. The Rabbits would come close, though, and even tied the score at 23 late. YME went on to take the next two points to seal the 25-23 win.

After a pair of tightly contested sets, the third was never in doubt for the Sting as they stormed out of the gate to take a commanding 10-1 lead that eventually grew to 19-3 down the stretch. The Rabbits went on to outscore YME 11-6, but it was too little too late as the Sting closed out the match with a 25-14 victory.

The Sting will be back in action today when they take on MACCRAY on the road at 7:15 p.m. YME’s Johnson hopes that her team can maintain their stellar level of play.

“We’ve been dealing all season with some inconsistencies, so I really want the girls to see what we’re capable of doing and to continue playing at that level instead of the ups and downs,” said Johnson.

Wabasso will return to its home court on Thursday when they host Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s in a Tomahawk Conference showdown. Wabasso’s Johnson says the focus in their next matchup will be to clean up the errors.

“As always, we just have to cut down on the errors,” said Johnson. “We’re doing some really silly things that are preventing us from winning games. The first two games were close, and we just didn’t do the things we needed to do to win.”

YME 3, Wabasso 0

YME 25 25 25

Wabasso 23 23 14

KILLS: YME (Steffen 9, Mortenson 7, Hinz 4); Wabasso (Eichten 8, Huhnerkoch 4, Fenger 4).

DIGS: YME (Flores 15, Steffen 14, Jaenisch 12, Hinz 8); Wabasso (Huhnerkoch 11, Frank 7).

SERVING (Aces): YME (Mortenson 5-5 (2), Steffen 7-8 (2), Flores 21-21 (1)); Wabasso (Huhnerkoch (4)).

SET ASSISTS: YME (Hinz 20); Wabasso (Carlson 7, Frank 5).

BLOCKS: YME (Mortenson 4, Sakry 3, Steffen 3); Wabasso (Fenger 2, Eichten 1).