BURLINGTON — If only Iola Middle School’s eighth-graders were playing horseshoes.
The volleyball team came so close, but dropped a pair of heartbreakers Saturday against Royster and Burlington, before losing in straight sets to Humboldt to end the day at the Burlington Invitational.
“We didn’t get the results we were hoping for, but we were competitive,” IMS head coach Terri Carlin said. “The first two matches could have gone either way. We just didn’t come through in the end. The girls played hard, and I saw some great things.”
Iola dropped a three-set thriller to Royster, 25-12, 20-25, 15-13, to open tournament play.
Alana Mader led the Mustangs with four aces, while Reese Curry had three kills and two aces. Kaysin Crusinbery followed with an ace, two assists and a kill. Elza Clift had an ace, Shae McCain an assist and Karingten Hall and Mariah Jelenik each had a kill.
“We didn’t get off to a good start, but shook off the loss and came back ready to play. We had match point in the final set, but couldn’t hold onto the lead and lost a close one,” Carlin said.
The next match against Burlington also went down to the wire, before the Wildcats prevailed, 25-14, 17-25, 15-13.
Crusinbery and Curry led with five kills and one assist each.
“They both were doing great at finding open areas on the other side,” Carlin said. Curry added three ace serves, while Crusinbery had an ace.
Annemarie McCullough had the hot serving hand in this match with six ace serves. She also had a kill.
Clift had three aces, a kill, and five assists “Elza is a great all-around player,” Carlin said. “She just does whatever I ask. She did a great job setting us up for some kills.”
Mader added three ace serves and three assists. McCain had 2 assists. Hall had 2 kills.
“It was tough to lose another match in a close third set,” Carlin said. “Looking at our stats tells me that we should have won this one. We had lots of good things happen in this game.”
Humboldt made sure there was no such drama in the final match of the day, defeating Iola, 25-11, 25-4.
“We had a difficult time with our serve-receive in this game, and never could get anything going,” Carlin said.
