Sigourney wins first round against Martensdale - St. Marys

SIGOURNEY - A change of pace didn’t slow them down too much. 

On Oct. 21 the Sigourney volleyball team once again proved to be better than Martensdale-St. Marys. 

The last time the two schools met was in the finals of the class 1A state softball tournament. Then, the Savages were able to best the Demons. In the opening round of the class 1A regional volleyball tournament the Savages bested Martensdale-St. Marys again. This time in a 3-0 sweep.

It didn’t come as easily as the score looked. 

“It can sometimes be hard to play in a slow paced game like that,” said Sigourney volleyball coach Sierra Davis. “We had to adjust to the pace of the game. We also were able to sub in some players that don’t normally play on varsity.”

The match started with a pretty quick win for the Savages. After gaining an early 8-3 lead the Savages had to adjust their attack to the slower pace of M-SM. The Savages used the momentum from the lead to eventually win the first set 25-12. 

The second set proved to be the closest set of the night. 

“I think it all comes down to our energy and mindset that the girls had to have,” Davis said. “We really had to start to focus on what we were doing on our side and not worry about what they were doing on their side of the net.”

At first it seemed the second set was going to be a carbon copy of the first. The Savages built a large, 16-9 lead. Eventually the lead started to slip away and Martensdale-St. Marys started to make a comeback. 

Eight of the final 12 points belonged to Martensdale-St. Marys, but that didn’t stop the Savages from getting a 25-20 win. 

With the 2-0 lead the Savages didn’t seem to waste time closing out the third set and the win. 

“The girls really did great to close out the match,” Davis said. “We were able to execute everything we needed to and we showed plenty of hustle. We just played everything as best we could.”

The best that the Savages could do in the third set was more than enough as they were able to work their way to a 25-9 victory to secure the 3-0 sweep and advance in the tournament. 

Josephine Moore and Reagan Clarahan both had seven kills in the match. Bailey Gretter, McKinley Chittick and Addy Fineran all had three kills each. Sophie Young added two kills. 

Taylor Rozenboom had 11 assists. Gretter added seven. Three more assists came from Kayla Renner. Dani Aller added one assist. 

Moore led the team with nine digs. Hannah Hanselman finished with eight digs. Gretter had four digs. Clarahan had three digs along with Aller. 

Aller had three aces to lead the Savages. Gretter and Hanselman both had two aces each. Rozenboom and Clarahan had one ace each. 

Photos by Mark Schafer