A busy week with five games resulted in the L-N Lady Raiders winning three and dropping two. The girls had a “trial-by-fire” game at Deshler where they performed well in a come-from-behind victory, but then faced tough competition at the Friend tournament on Saturday.

The girls are playing well, but they are also meeting some pretty tough competition. The game summaries follow.

L-N vs. Friend: 25-8, 25-11, 25-7: A trip to Friend High School (in Friend, Neb.) gave the Lady Raiders the chance to win their third game of the season (Another team other than Palmer.) The three set victory saw Friend lead briefly (2-0) at the beginning of the first Set. Other than that, L-N led throughout all Sets.

The favorite word for the night was “Ace Serve.” And . . . they came in bunches. Aleah Heikkinen started the phenomenon in the first set with three consecutive ace serves early in the first set. Elsa Jorgensen followed with three a short time later. Emily Miller had two late in the set.

The second set had fewer aces, but in the middle of the set Katelyn Mazour had a couple aces in the middle of an 11-0 Raider scoring run.

Fittingly, the third set began with an ace by Aleah, followed by five in a row by Elsa and Emily Troudt scored the 25th point with an ace serve.

Six of the nine players scored aces. The other highlight of the game were kills. Six players contributed to the game’s 21 kills.

Kills Ace, Digs:

Aleah Heikkinen: 3, 5, 5; Emma Epley: 6, 3, 4; Elsa Jorgensen: 0, 7, 11; Katelyn Mazour: 3, 3, 11; Emily Troudt: 0, 1, 0; Avery Mazour: 4, 0, 0; Tori Miller: 0, 0, 1; Emily Miller: 3, 3, 4; McKenzie Ostdiek: 2, 0, 0.

Ball Handling: Katelyn: 26 of 26 with 10 assists; Emma 16 of 16 with 9 assists.

Serve Reception: As a team 19 of 21. Elsa and Emily M. led the team with six each.

Blocking: No statistics recorded.

L-N vs. Deshler: 17-25, 22-25, 27-25, 25-17, 17-15: “What a Game” is the easiest way to describe this trip to Deshler last Thursday evening. Five sets and two overtimes. It can’t get much better than that for an early season ball game. And . . . as you might guess, there were tons of interesting happenings during the match to catch everyone attention. For example:

Set 1: The score was tied 11 time before the 13-13 tie ended that interesting fact. During that time span only once did a team score more than one point at a time.

2: Each team served only one ace serve in the first set.

3: Deshler had three of the game total nine ace serves in the second set. Deshler scored first and retained the lead throughout the set except for a tie at 11-11.

4: Third sets are always interesting. Deshler wins and everybody goes home. L-N wins and we keep playing. It didn’t look good at the beginning of this set as Deshler jumped out to a 5-0 lead. L-N regrouped and eventually tied that game at 16-16 and went ahead 17-16 on an Emma Epley ace serve. From there to the end of the set, the score was tied seven times. The end came with Emily Troudt serving one of her two aces for the night and with Deshler hitting the ball out of bounds for the Raider’s 27th point.

5: The same stakes are in play for the fourth set. You have to play to win, or you go home. In this fourth set there were as many long volleys as in the whole rest of the game. The score was last tied at 13-13 before L-N started taking advantage of a number of Deshler hitting errors. Coupled those errors with an ace serve by Emma, along with a resounding kill by Emma, L-N gained the advantage. Deshler contributed four net hits in a row to contribute to the Raider win.

6: Five set games are somewhat rare, but they often are the most interesting. L-N jumped out to a 4-0 but then slowed down and Deshler tied the game at 10-10 and the score was tied at each point up to the 15-15 tie. The final two Raider points saw Emily Miller and Tori Miller combine for a double block for the 16th point and then Elsa Jorgensen served the final point as an ace serve landing the ball just over the net.

7: The whole game included many great plays, but one that maybe stood out was when Aleah Heikkinen set up what looked like just an “assist” play, but she dumped the ball over the net to a surprised Deshler team.

Emily M. with 19 and Emma with 12 led the team in kills. Emma led the team in ace serves

Aleah and Emily M. were each credited with ace blocks, but six of the players had credit for block assists.

(Kills – Ace – Digs)

Aleah Heikkinen 2, 1, 14; Emma Epley 12, 3, 7; Elsa Jorgensen 0 2, 25; Katelyn Mazour 3, 0, 11; Emily Troudt 0, 2, 3; Avery Mazour 3, 0, 3; Tori Miller 3, 0, 3; Emily Miller 19, 2; 23.

Ball Handling: Katelyn Mazour: 71 of 73 with 17 assists; Emma Epley 57 of 59 with 16 assists.

Serve Receiving: Aleah Heikkinen 26 of 27; Emily Miller 26 of 26; Elsa Jorgensen 19 of 25; Emma Epley 10 of 10.

Blocking: (Solo, Assists) Aleah 1, 5; Emma 0, 1; Katelyn 0, 2; Avery 0, 3; Tori 0, 2; Emily 1, 3.

L-N vs. Meridian: 25-18, 25-13: The Lady Raiders returned to Friend, Neb., on Saturday to take part in their annual tournament. They defeated class D-1 Meridian in their opening game, but lost to Class C-2 Sutton and D-1 Humphrey/ Lindsay Holy Family.

Game Summaries:

L-N vs. Meridian: 25-18, 25-13: L/N scored first on a Meridian error, but they led during most of the early part of the game in spite of the score being tied 8 times. After the last tied score at 12-12, the Raider sput their game together in a number of ways. Tori Miller started the surge off with a kill; Elsa and Emily Miller served aces during a 10 – 3 scoring run. The final three points were thanks to Aleah Heikkinen’s efforts with two dumps and one kill.

In Set 2, L-N got off to a great start early on when they ran an 8-0 scoring run with Emma Epley serving that included two ace serves. The remainder of the victory came with solid volleyball by the Raiders. The final point came off a kill attempt by Aleah where the ball seemed to bounce on top of the net before falling onto the floor in front of a surprised Meridian team.

(Kills – Ace – Digs)

Aleah Heikkinen 2, 0, 2; Emma Epley 7, 2, 6; Elsa Jorgensen 0 2, 12; Katelyn Mazour 3, 0, 7; Emily Troudt 0, 0, 0; Avery Mazour 0, 0, 0; Tori Miller 4, 0, 2; Emily Miller 8, 3, 8; McKenzie Ostdiek 0, 0, 0.

Ball Handling: Katelyn 28 of 28 with 12 Assists; Emma 22-23 with 9 Assists.

Serve Receiving: Elsa 10 of 10; Emily M. 8-8; Aleah 5 of 5; Katelyn 5 of 5.

Blocking: (Solo, Assists) Avery 0-1.

L-N vs. Sutton: 16-25, 15-25: The win against Meridian moved L-N on to play one of the top teams in Class C-2, Sutton. The result of the game were not positive for the Raiders as they lost the game in two sets. A number of attack errors and receiving errors just did not let the Raiders get anything going in their favor for very long.

The game was good experience for the girls and hopefully helped them against future opponents that play very well.

(Kills – Ace – Digs)

Aleah Heikkinen 0, 1, 2; Emma Epley 6, 0, 5; Elsa Jorgensen 0, 0, 4; Katelyn Mazour 0, 0, 3; Emily Troudt 0, 0, 1; Avery Mazour 1, 0, 0; Tori Miller 1, 0, 1; Emily Miller 1, 1, 6.

Ball Handling: Katelyn 17 of 17 with 4 Assists; Emma 8 of 11 with 1 Assists.

Serve Receiving: Aleah 12-15; Elsa 11 of 13.

L-N vs. Humphrey-Lindsay Holy Family: 25-23; 17-25; 22-25: The Lady Raiders dropped the final game for them on Saturday in a tight match 1 Set to 2 Sets. We have not been able to obtain results and will do a summary in next week’s paper.