Bears open season 1-2 at Keota Tournament

KEOTA — The English Valleys Bears volleyball team kicked off their season Monday in a tournament at Keota.

The Bears went 1-2 in their three matches against Hillcrest Academy, Highland and Cedar Valley Christian.

Coming into this season, the Bears had to replace five of their starters from last season.

“We started well in our matches but had some dead spots,” English Valleys head volleyball coach Robert Barrick said. “We played good volleyball at times.”

The team is pretty new playing together, so having some players sick and not being able to practice together did not help things, Barrick said.

In their first match, the Bears fell in two sets to Hillcrest Academy (21-12, 21-18).

Christy Knapp had four of the team’s seven kills in the match loss. Ava Gehrking had two blocks.

After that, the Bears forced a third set against Highland in their second match, but fell 15-10.

Gehrking had six kills while Hadyn Bender had 12 assists offensively.

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In the last match of the night, the Bears took care of business against Cedar Valley Christian in two sets by scores of 21-12 and 21-8 to get in the win column.

“Working out the kinks,” Barrick said following the tournament. The trend lines are in the right direction.“