By Skip Hunter –

Last Tuesday the Southwest Minnesota Christian volleyball team headed to Lamberton to take on the Red Rock Central Falcons. The Eagles were looking for a win to keep them in the upper half of the Red Rock Conference standings. They had a slow start in game 1 losing by a score of 25-18 after falling behind 8-1. However, they came back and won the next 3 games 25-14, 25-19, and 25-15 to win the match 3-1.

Four hitting errors helped to put SWC behind 8-1 before Coach Morgan Schoonhoven called a timeout in order to get the team focused on the task at hand. While they did not win game 1, the team started to play more respectable volleyball. After the timeout, Myah Vander Maten passed to Ana Veldkamp who set Madysen Fey for a kill off a blocker’s hand. Helped by some Falcon errors the Eagles got within 4 points at 9-5. Later Jocelyn Barron was the recipient of Vander Maten and Veldkamp’s work for a kill. Vander Maten had 18 digs on the night which resulted in 9 passes for points. Veldkamp had 27 set assists. Paris Van Dyke had a kill followed by a Barron kill of an overpass to make the score 13-8. Later, Fey had another kill using a Makenna Brands pass combined with a Veldkamp set and Makenna Moss had a block to make the score 16-12. Veldkamp made a diving save, got the ball to Fey who set Sienna Tripp, who pushed the ball onto the floor on the Falcon side of the net. However, the Eagles could not generate any offense to the end of the game and lost 25-18.

Veldkamp started game 2 with 7 good serves including 3 aces to give the Eagles an early 6-1 lead. Fey had a kill off an overpass in that stretch. Fey had another kill using a pass from Mackenzie Pap and a Veldkamp set followed by a Moss kill using a Fey dig – she had 19 digs in the contest. Pap had a block to make the score 9-2. The Eagles fell prey to the hitting error and their lead was cut to 11-8. Van Dyke did make a nice placement of a ball to give the Eagles a point. The Falcons narrowed the gap to 13-10 before a hitting error and 2 Moss blocks made the score 16-10. Fey had a block and Moss another kill. Veldkamp had 2 kills in the latter stages of the match as SWC won 25-14.