The West Point-Beemer Volleyball team has gotten on a roll lately, defeating Madison 3-0 on the road Thursday night, downing Clarkson/Leigh 2-0 and Battle Creek 2-1 at the Stanton Tournament on Saturday, and topping Humphrey/Lindsay Holy Family 2-1 and Logan View 2-0 at the Humphrey/Lindsay Holy Family Triangular Tuesday night. The Cadets' lone loss came to Stanton on Saturday, a match West Point-Beemer dropped 2-0.
The Cadets won set one over the Dragons 25-17, set two 25-17, and set three 25-20.
Makenna Weddle paced West Point-Beemer with 6 kills while Nicole Mitzel had 8 ace serves.
First year head Coach Conley Straight says his team performed pretty much as expected. "There's always that fine tuning that I would still like us to see. And it's still early in the season, it's only 6 games into a 30-35 game season so you can't be too critical of one match, giving up too many unforced errors, that sort of thing and stuff. So you always got to find the positives and continue to build on those, and find those things that we can continue to work on day-by-day."
Straight says his team's 16 serving errors really didn't bother him since they also had 14 aces. "I think our serving game was probably our strongest point of tonight. Taking and keeping them out of system. Them giving us free balls, or causing them to make an error on their side of the net. So I felt that for the most part we did capitalize when we did have an opportunity, and Katie Pilakowski did a good job of getting all our attackers involved."
Pilakowski had 25 set assists.
The Cadets dropped set one to the Mustangs 25-22, and fell 25-8 in set two.
West Point-Beemer topped the Patriots 25-21 in the first set, and 25-13 in the second set.
The Braves took set one from the Cadets 25-17, but West Point-Beemer responded by taking set two 25-18 and set three 25-19.
The Cadets downed the Bulldogs 25-18 in set one. Humphrey/Lindsay Holy Family won set two 25-23 before West Point-Beemer claimed set three 25-16.
The Cadets have really picked up their game as of late. West Point-Beemer is playing very respectable volleyball right now, in my opinion.
The Cadets (7-4) travel to North Bend Central (12-0) to take on the Tigers Thursday night.
North Bend Central won 3-0 at Oakland-Craig Tuesday night.
The Tigers have rolled this year so far, and have only been challenged a few times as they have only lost three sets all season.
I think West Point-Beemer has the potential to challenge and give North Bend Central a match though.
I think the Cadets are capable of at least taking a set even if they don't win.
I don't know about West Point-Beemer's chances of winning at North Bend Central, but the Cadets ought to think they can go in there and be competitive and have a good showing.
West Point-Beemer is on a roll having won 5 out of their last 6 so there's certainly a lot of potential in this team.
I just don't know if going up against a veteran Tiger squad that features West Virginia commit Kristin Lux and Midland commit Brooke Fredrickson is going to yield a win.
Anything is possible, and the Cadets are certainly capable of winning, but my money is on North Bend Central when it is all said and done.
West Point-Beemer has to go in there and challenge the likes of Lux and Fredrickson though. Those two have to be challenged at the net. The Cadets can't let them just have their way.
West Point-Beemer has to be strong at the net and have good court presence and communication.
The Cadets have to play with a lot of pride, tenacity, toughness, grit, passion, and fire if they are to be successful Thursday night.
West Point-Beemer has to head into the match believing they can win because anything is certainly possible.
I look for the Cadets to challenge and give the Tigers a tough match given how they've played lately, but North Bend Central is at full strength and well rested so that is pretty difficult to contend with, in my opinion.
West Point-Beemer is a good team, but the Tigers are a great team is how I assess the two squads. If the match was in West Point I would say the Cadets perhaps pull some magic and spring an upset, but with the match being in North Bend I simply don't see it happening.
West Point-Beemer has to come in motivated and must play with a chip on their shoulder though. Perhaps I'm not giving the Cadets the love and credit they deserve. I still think this is a high quality team though.
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