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WYNOT — After opening the season with three straight losses, the Hartington-Newcastle volleyball team has won three matches in a row, including last Thursday’s Wynot Quadrangular.
The team the Lady Wildcats beat to go 2-0 in the quad is the same one who swept them just a week prior in a best-of-five-sets match in their season opener.
Hartington-Newcastle downed Crofton to avenge the loss in the opener with a 25-16 and 25-22 sweep in the best-of-three-sets match to get to .500 on the season.
Earlier in the quadrangular, the Lady Wildcats turned away Bloomfield 25-23, 21-25 and 25-23.
Hartington-Newcastle overcame a slow start against the Lady Warriors and then held on for the sweep.
“We were really ready to take on Crofton after they had beaten us the week before,” Lady Wildcats head coach Sarah Edwards said. “We got our focus and settled in to take the set with aggressive serving and strong defense.”
After the win in the opening set, the Lady Warriors tried to get back in the match in set two.
“They battled us right to the end,” Edwards said. “But we stayed focused and battled right back.”
Mani Lange and McKenzie Bruning led the Lady Wildcat attack with three kills each.
Lauren Howell contributed a couple of ace serves as Hartington-Newcastle had five aces in the match.
Lange, Bruning and Olivia Grutsch each added one. Grutsch set up the offense with six set assists.
Zoey Gratzfeld had a couple of blocks at the net with Bruning getting one, and Howell had seven digs. Lange and Grutsch added four, Abi Rice had three and Gratzfeld and Maddie Steffen each had two.
Lange successfully passed the ball 10 times; Howell and Rice each had eight good passes.
Against Bloomfield, Hartington- Newcastle nipped the Queen Bees in the opening set by the 25-23 score to take a 1-0 lead in the match.
“We played a lot of defense to get past the Bees,” Edwards said.
The Lady Wildcats did just that with eight blocks in the match and 46 digs.
Grutsch and Bruning each had two blocks and Lange had 16 digs, while Rice had a dozen digs.
HNS did a great job in passing the ball, with Howell leading the pack with 19 good passes. Lange added 17 and Rice had 15.
Grutsch tipped up 29 set assists while Bruning registered nine kills; Gratzfeld had eight. Howell had seven and Lange had six for a very balanced Lady Wildcat attack.
“I am very proud of the girls for staying focused and making adjustments as needed,” Edwards said.
Hartington-Newcastle was set to travel to Winnebago for a Lewis and Clark Conference match on Sept. 5 and will be back in action Sept. 9 in the Creighton Invitational.
The Lady Wildcats are also scheduled to travel to Wynot on Sept. 14.
Hartington-Newcastle 25 25 Crofton 16 22 HARTINGTON-NEWCASTLE (3-3): Abi Rice 3d, 1s, 8sr; Mani Lange 3k, 1a, 4d, 10sr; Zoey Gratzfeld 1k, 2b, 2d; Lauren Howell 2a, 1b, 7d, 8sr; Olivia Grutsch 1k, 1a, 4d, 6s; Maddie Steffen 2d; McKenzie Bruning 3k, 1a, 1b, 1d. Hartington-Newcatle 23 25 25 Bloomfield 25 21 23 HARTINGTON-NEWCASTLE: Rice 12d, 15sr; Lange 6k, 3a, 16d, 17sr; Gratzfeld 8k, 3a, 1b, 1d; Howell 7k, 5d, 19sr; Kendra Anderson 4d; Grutsch 1k, 2b, 5d, 29s; Steffen 1k, 1b, 1d; Bruning 9k, 2b, 1d, 1sr.
