Old rivals renewed acquaintances Thursday night at Tim Grady Gymnasium when the No. 11 in Class 3A Mid-Prairie Golden Hawk volleyball team entertained the Washington Demons in the first match of the year for both schools. The Golden Hawks took three straight sets from the Demons to earn the win, 25-20, 25-13 and 25-17. Sets one and three were extremely competitive, with the Hawks pulling away in the final five to eight points of each, while the second set saw Mid-Prairie hit the gas early with the Demons unable to keep up.
The Golden Hawks posted impressive team and individual numbers in the victory, scoring 38 kills with a clinical .452 kill efficiency rate with 36 assists, 31 digs and eight blocks at the net. Individual leaders included 20 assists for sophomore Jovi Evans, 11 kills for sophomore Harper Pacha, 10 digs for junior Dakota Mitchell, four blocks for senior Paige Safly and four aces for sophomore Katelyn Harland. After the match, Mid-Prairie captains, Mitchell, Evans and Pacha joined KCII Sports to talk about how they felt before the match, the keys to their best stretches of play and how it felt to get the win. Mitchell said, “I was so nervous…I was literally shaking. We’re working on running a fast offense. Our tempo. Not worrying about what the other team is doing on the other side of the net. Focusing on us. We played our game more in the second set. We talked more, we played our faster offense. The win feels good but we have a lot of work to do.”
Evans added, “I was very excited. I think we were all really excited. I think we just had a lot of nerves. The jitters came back when we were running out and we got it all out in the first set. It’s important for us to hit connections. We have a lot of new faces on the court. We need to get that down. In the second set, we dialed it back and locked in a little better. Our serves were also better then.
Pacha said, “I was very nervous because my warm-up didn’t go very well so I knew that I had to step it up. I felt like we came out more confident in the second set.
Washington had 27 digs, 15 kills, nine assists and four blocks as a team. Individual leaders included Isabella Salazar with eight digs, Taylor Miksch with five kills, Lauren Hinrichsen with five assists and one block each for Leighton Messinger, Miksch, Maci Williams and Caitlin Kroll. After the match, Washington head coach Aaron Six talked about his team’s plucky defense, their ability to hang in the match against a tough opponent in a difficult venue, and his standout units and individuals. “I felt we were really prepared for tonight’s match. We talked about making sure that we came in with confidence. In the past we have not fared well at Mid-Prairie and we have to be able to put that behind us. I thought we did a lot of good things. We fought back and played really well, especially in the third set. During the night with our combinations it seemed like either we had a good pass, but our set would be off, or next time, our hitter’s timing was off. Defensively, that is an area that we did well at times. We had number of times where we were able to bring up a hard attack. Our back row did a nice job. Leighton Messinger does a nice job on the outside. Plays really smart. Our setters did a nice job as far as mixing it up a little bit and not always going to the same hitter.”
The win moves Mid-Prairie to 1-0 and gives the Hawks their 11th straight victory over the Demons, and their 19th in the last 21 of the series. Washington is now 0-1. Mid-Prairie travels to the Central Lee Tourney Saturday, The Demons are in Grinnell.