Winfield-Mt. Union falls at Highland in four sets

BY AARON VINER

Golden Triangle News Service

After a strong second game, the Winfield-Mt. Union volleyball team looked like they might have wrestled momentum away from Highland.

After falling 25-19 in the first set, the Wolves led for much of the second game, leading by as much as 14-9, but the Huskies tied things up at 20 with a 5-1 run.

The Wolves withstood the rally to take the set and even things up at one apiece, but Highland bounced right back and cruised the rest of the way, taking set 3, 25-14 and set 4, 25-17 for the 3-1 match victory.

?The second set was obviously our best performance,? W-MU head coach David Pieart said. ?I thought we managed to control what we wanted to do. In the other sets, Highland took us completely out of what we wanted to do. We were playing their game, reacting to what they were doing and we can?t play that way.?

The Wolves were led offensively by Hannah Buffington?s seven kills, while Lexee Hartsock notched six and Peral Krieger-Coble came up with five on the night.

Lauren Jamison was strong from her setter role, picking up 17 assists on the night.

Sophie Kongable led the team in serving, connecting on all 13 of her service attempts, notching two aces in the process.

?I think most of our players, with quite a few returning from last year, are more mature,? Pieart said. ?When we are being aggressive, we can control the net quite well, like we did in the second set (but) we weren?t doing it often enough.?

With the loss moving the Wolves to 3-3 on the season, Pieart said he is looking for continued improvement as the season progresses.

?We need to work on our speed coverage,? Pieart said. ?We were reacting rather than anticipating. We will get better at that and we need to work on our offense a little bit. We knew that coming in and we still know that.?

The Wolves will host Iowa Mennonite on Tuesday, Sept. 6, at 7:30 p.m.