Wolves’ experience equals victories

WINFIELD - A coach spends a lot of time at the high school level teaching the basics. Fundamentals are so important with teenagers that it is a treat when a coach can go beyond them.

The Winfield-Mount Union volleyball team has seven seniors (Emma Haines, Kayla Edwards, Madie Anderson, Molly Miller are four) with three (Jenna Buffington, Jamie Wilkerson and Kyndal Townsley) being four-year starters. 'Add to them, we have a variety of two-year starters,” W-MU head coach David Pieart said. 'We just have a ton of experience.”

It is a coach's job to combine all of that experience into a cohesive unit. Pieart has done that very well, judging from the Wolves start to the 2020 season. W-MU improved to 5-2 Thursday with a 3-1 (23-25, 25-14, 25-14, 25-13) Southeast Iowa Super Conference North Division win over the visitors from Pekin.

The Panthers fall to 3-4 after winning three straight. The Wolves' only losses are to No. 14 (Class 2A) West Branch and No. 14 (Class 1A) Prince of Peace. They have a win over a Class 4A school in Keokuk.

'When you have the experience we have, you can work on things like jump serves,” Pieart said. 'We can work on things that are more specializations. We can move from fundamentals to more in-depth skills.”

The serving was effective with Townsley hitting six aces and Wilkerson four against the Panthers' serve receive.

'We were off. Our passing is usually much better than it was here,” new Pekin head coach Rusty Crabtree said. 'We were all quite bad. I hate to say it that way, but what happened tonight was not typical of what we have done in the past.”

Pekin started out well and had a 9-5 lead in the opening set, but the Wolves went on a run to take a 12-9 lead. The score went back and forth until a Melina Oepping kill gave W-MU a 22-20 lead. Pekin's Kaydlyn Johnson got behind the service line and aced out a 25-23 Pekin win.

'We had a slow start with far too many errors,” Pieart said. W-MU had 11 hitting errors and three service errors in the first set. 'You cannot give a team 14 points and expect to win a close one. We cleaned it up a lot after that first set and we became much more effective.”

The Wolves were hungry after the set loss and started with a Wilkerson ace to build a 10-2 lead before Crabtree called time. Buffington and Oepping combined on a block for the first point after the timeout and W-MU maintained the advantage for a 25-14 win.

'We were playing hard and trying hard,” Crabtree said. 'Things that usually fall and go our way just did not go our way. Sometimes teams will have off nights and I guess this was one of those nights because we were off.”

The third set went from a tie at 5-5 to 9-5 with Oepping serving, then 13-6 with Keetyn Townsley serving. It was 18-7 before a late Pekin rally left the score at 25-14 and the match at 2-1.

The third set was tied at 11 when Kyndal Townsley started her serve and didn't stop until it was 20-11 on the way to a 25-13 win.

'We've been teaching the jump serve and they've been working on it, but it helps that we have all that experience,” Pieart said. 'I thought everybody had a pretty good game. Every player struggled at one point in time and every player recovered from it. We have been preaching that if we are going to succeed, it has to be all of us working together. I thought we were pretty balanced.”

Buffington finished with 11 kills, Oepping eight, Bradie Buffington seven, Jami Wilkerson six, Emma Haines six and Keely Malone four. Malone put up 18 assists and Edwards eight. Ky. Townsley had 15 digs, Ke. Townsley 10, Wilkerson nine, J. Buffington seven, Edwards five and Oepping three. WMU next plays Tuesday at Wapello.

Pekin hosts Columbus Tuesday. The Pekin stats were unavailable.