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Pirates struggle at Genesee Tournament
The Prairie Lady Pirates volleyball team competed in the Genesee Tournament Saturday, Oct. 2 and came away without a single match victory. The Pirates were missing a couple of regulars but called up Randi Schumacher from the JV team to help fill the missing spots. Prairie was in a pool with Pomeroy, Kamiah and Clark Fork. They lost to Clark Fork 23-25, 16-25 to start the day. Then they faced Kamiah and lost 25-17, 15-25, 8-15. They ended pool play with a 10-25, 14-25 loss to Pomeroy. In the consolation bracket they faced Cascade and were eliminated 17-25, 26-24, 8-15. Prairie mostly trailed until putting 3 points together to take a 20-18 lead. Clark Fork came back to tie it at 21 all. Prairie fell behind and tied the score again at 22 and 23 before surrendering 2 straight points for the loss. In the second game Prairie again took the early lead as Lauren Merrill had a 5-point serving run that included 2 aces, a kill each by Ashley Jackson and Briget Long and a stuff block by Natalie Arnzen. Prairie couldn’t hold the lead though as Clark Fork put together a 4-point serving run and then a 5-point serving run to take control of the game at 11-17. Arnzen had 9 kills including 2 stuffs while Long had 8 kills including a stuff. Jackson had 5 kills and 7 assists and Ashley Schaeffer had 4 kills while Lindsey Crea had 11 assists. After trading sideouts, Long had a 3-point run as prairie took an 8-1 lead. A pair of aces by Arnzen made it 12-3. Kamiah closed within 18-13 before a kill by Arnzen put Jackson at the service line. Jackson served 3 straight points, 2 of them aces, for a 22-13 lead. Kamiah again closed within 5 but a stuff block by Schaeffer, a kill by Merrill and an ace by Arnzen gave Prairie the win. In the second game Prairie ran into trouble with their serve receive as Kamiah piled up the aces. They broke open a 5-6 game with 4 consecutive aces and 4 more in a pair of 3-point runs put them in control at 9-18. Prairie closed within 5 at 15-20 on an ace by Jackson but a missed spike and 4 more aces by Kamiah ended the game. In the deciding game 6 aces out of 7 serves by Kamiah broke open a close game as Kamiah built a 5-11 lead. Two aces by Arnzen helped Prairie pull within 8-11 but another missed spike and a 3-point service run by Kamiah ended the match. Jackson had 6 kills and 3 aces in the match while Long had 4 kills and 5 aces. Merrill had 3 kills and 3 aces and Crea had 9 assists. The second game wasn’t much better although Prairie did manage to take the lead at 5-3. Pomeroy came right back with 8 straight points, 5 on aces, to take a 5-11 lead. Pomeroy then built on their advantage to their final 11-point margin. Arnzen had 5 kills while Schaeffer had 3 kills including 2 stuffs. Jackson had 6 assists. Prairie still had some hangover from being blitzed by Pomeroy as they fell behind 1-8 and 4-16 in the opening game. They then managed to battle back as they pulled within 17-22 before falling. In the second game Prairie trailed most of the way as they fell behind 0-3 right off the bat. They tied the score at 3 and then fell back again, trailing by as many as 6 points at 15-21 before mounting their rally. A kill by Vanessa Sonnen put Lindsey Crea on the service line and Crea served up an ace and Jackson added a kill to cut the lead to 18-21. Cascade scored a sideout but then missed a serve. Long scored a first touch kill but a missed serve made it 20-23. Arnzen then scored a kill to put Long at the service line. Long served up an ace and Arnzen followed with a kill and a stuff to give Prairie a 24-23 lead. Cascade tied it with a sideout but Merrill scored a kill on her serve receive dig and Jackson then served an ace to give Prairie the win. They couldn’t maintain their momentum though as they quickly fell behind 0-5 in the deciding game. They trailed 2-7 when Schaeffer scored a kill and followed that up with 2 aces with Long scoring 2 kills as Prairie tied the score at 7-7. That was Prairie’s last gasp as Cascade controlled the rest of the game with Prairie’s only remaining point coming on a missed Cascade serve. Jackson had 5 kills, 3 aces and 11 assists in the match while Schumacher had 5 kills including a stuff. Long had 4 kills. Arnzen had 3 kills including a stuff and 5 aces. Schaeffer had 3 kills and 4 aces. Arnzen serves Prairie to win at Lapwai The Prairie Lady Pirates broke an 8-match losing streak thanks to the hot serving of Natalie Arnzen in a match at Lapwai Monday, Oct. 4, 18-25, 25-17, 20-25, 25-12, 15-2. The Pirates appeared head for another loss as Lapwai took a 9-12 lead in the fourth game after winning 2 of the first 3 games. 
Lapwai then missed a serve and that put Arnzen at the service line. She served up 2 aces then teammate Briget Long broke out of a match-long funk and scored a kill. Vanessa Sonnen followed with a kill on a play that saw Lapwai’s 6’ middle blocker Samantha White Temple apparently roll her ankle. An ace by Arnzen, a kill by Long and another ace by Arnzen made it 17-12. Randi Schumacher picked up a kill then Arnzen served up 5 straight aces. Long then scored a kill on a spike to the far corner and ended the game when she reached high for volley from Lapwai and knocked it to an open spot. Arnzen had finished the game with 15 straight service points. Lindsey Crea started the deciding game off with a 5-0 run which included an ace and a couple of stuff blocks by Long before she missed a serve. Lapwai scored on an ace then Crea set up Arnzen for a kill that put Natalie back on the service line. She started another run with 3 straight aces. Long scored on a tip at the net then Arnzen picked up 2 more aces. Crea set up Schumacher for another kill and Arnzen ended the match with 2 more aces. Arnzen had hit on her final 24 serves of the match with 15 of those going for aces. In fact Arnzen missed only 2 of 50 serves on the night with 26 aces. In the opening game Arnzen served 5 straight aces to get Prairie off to a 6-2 lead but Lapwai came back to take the lead at 7-8. Prairie took the lead back at 9-8 on an ace by Ashley Jackson but Lapwai then took control and led the rest of the game.  In
the second game a 3-point run by Arnzen again gave Prairie an early lead
at 5-1 and this time the Pirates never trailed again although Lapwai was
able to close within 1 at 7-6.
There weren’t any sustained runs in this game, Prairie just gradually pulled away as they kept siding out Lapwai’s serves. In the third game it was another strong start by Arnzen with 3 aces in a 4-point run that gave Prairie a 5-0 lead. Lapwai later put together their own run of aces to tie the game at 10-10. A 3-point run with 2 aces by Crea put Prairie back on top at 14-12 but Lapwai came back and this time it was the reverse of the previous game as Lapwai continually sided out Prairie’s serving chances to keep the Pirates from coming back. Lapwai led most of the time early in the fourth game, but never by more than 2 points until they took that 9-12 lead on what turned out to be their last point of the game. Long had 19 kills including 4 stuff blocks with 10 of those kills and 3 of the 4 stuffs coming in the final 2 games. Arnzen added 10 kills including a stuff to her serving exploits. 
Schumacher, who was on the JV a week ago, came up with 8 kills in the match. Crea had 24 assists and 4 aces while Jackson had 7 assists and 4 aces. With the win Prairie improves to 4-6 in league play and 6-14 overall. |
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