CHERRYVALE — Humboldt grabbed two wins and Cherryvale went 1-1 at a volleyball triangular that Cherryvale hosted on Tuesday night with Humboldt and Baxter Springs.
Cherryvale defeated Baxter Springs in the first match, 2-0 (25-22, 25-17).
“We didn’t have many unforced errors,” Cherryvale head coach Aimee Strickland said. “We executed well and played on our strengths. We came together as a team and finished the job. We were excited and full of energy.”
Humboldt then swept Baxter Springs as well, 2-0 (25-18, 25-21).
Ricklyn Hillmon had 10 kills for the Cubs while Shelby Shaughnessy added seven. SKylar Hottenstein had four aces and Bailey Daniels had 12 assists.
“Our defense worked a lot harder today as a team,” Humboldt head coach Terry Meadows said. “We fell behind in both matches but fought hard to get back out. We didn’t fall apart. Our passes came alive towards the end and that let us get the ball set.”
In the night’s finale, Humboldt took down Cherryvale, 2-0 (25-18, 29-27).
“We defeated ourselves,” Strickland said. “We had passes on a silver platter go over the net for them to put back down. When we execute and have an open mind with our attack, things go well. But when we get in our own heads and are too caught up in the moment, that’s when we’re our own worst enemy.”
Shaughnessy amassed 14 kills for the Cubs while Lakyn Meadows added six to go along with eight assists. Daniels also had eight assists in the match.
The Cubs kept Cherryvale out of system through much of the match as the Chargers’ serve-receive went off-kilter.
“We work hard on aggressive serving,” Meadows said. “We know where we want to place the ball and we work hard on doing that. It takes them out of system and we get a lot of free balls out of it.”
“Humboldt is a really talented spot-serving team, and we don’t always face that consistently,” Strickland added. “When teams can exploit our weaknesses and our girls aren’t adjusting, there’s only so much we can hold their hand to do. We trust the girls to have eyes on the court and have a voice. They just didn’t execute against their serves.”
Kadynce Forman led the Chargers with 23 kills over the two matches. Harmony John led with four aces and as many blocks, while LiliAnn Whittley tallied 41 assists.
Cherryvale moved to 8-6 overall on the season.
“We’ve had some really high highs and great things that we encourage the girls to do,” Strickland said. “We’ve also had some lows where some of it is tangible and some of it is not. The things that we can control, we consistently work on. The girls are starting to see what the results are when they execute what’s designed for them. We can keep up with any team. They just have to believe they can do it every point of every set of every match.”
As for Humboldt, it improved to 4-6.
“We’re really close,” Meadows said. “Cherryvale had been playing better. Tonight was really good. We had some tough matches last week. But we came back and built on that. Today was a good day.”
