Iola Middle School’s seventh-grade A-team finished its volleyball season Saturday at the IMS Net Games
Chanute’s Royster Middle School Rockets beat Marmaton Valley Junior High’s Wildcats 21-13, 21-5 in the championship match. Marmaton Valley went 2-1 in pool play and defeated Parsons 21-3, 21-16 in the semifinals.
“The girls set a goal to bring home a medal. They accomplished this with second-place medals,” said Brenda Mills.
Iola’s Ponies lost to Marmaton Valley 21-9, 21-13 to open pool play. They lost to Columbus and to Independence.
Marmaton Valley went three sets against Independence. The Bulldogs beat the Wildcats 19-21, 21-18, 16-14. The Wildcats downed Columbus 21-17, 14-21, 15-10 winning the pool.
For the day, Marmaton Valley got 31 service points for Aubrey Ard, 29 service points from Clara Boyd, 26 service points from Trinitee Gutierrez, 18 service points from Misty Storrer, 13 service points from Emily Plaschka, five service point from Kyla Drake and four service points from Maggie Stevenson. Nalea Alexander and Megan Ensminger also were on the team.
Iola’s Toni Macha and Alaynah Donovan each had an ace serve in the Marmaton Valley match.
Columbus beat Iola 20-22, 18-21, 15-9.
“We had better serving and passing in this match,” said Stacy Sprague, IMS seventh-grade coach. “We had a lot of rallies during this set.”
Donovan was 14-of-14 serving for Iola. Della Lohman had one ace serve. Macha and Alexis Heslop each were 8-of-9 serving and Sydney Wade was 6-of-8 serving.
“Our last match against Independence proved our serving had improved. However passing errors were too great,” Sprague said as Independence beat Iola 21-11, 20-22, 15-9.
Jadyn Sigg had an ace serve in the match. Iola missed just one serve in the match.
Iola’s seventh-grade players were asked to share something about their first volleyball season. Here are their words:
“I learned that volleyball is such a mental game and never give up on yourself.” — Riley Murry.
“Always believe in your teammates no matter what.” — Sydney Wade.
