Lady Jays Volleyball
Volleyball Team Triumphs at Wakefield Tournament
by Alle Koehler
On Saturday, September 11, the Pierce girls varsity volleyball traveled to Wakefield to participate in the varsity volleyball tourney and came away with a first place finish, defeating three teams, as well as two previous teams on Thursday.
Head coach Zach Weber stated, “I’m very proud of our effort this week. As a team, we are bringing a consistent, focused effort to every match. Our attacking numbers continue to be excellent, but our improvements in serve and serve receive stick out to me the most. Those areas have been a major area of concern and focus for us, and the improvements the team has made have been awesome to see.”
The Lady Jays started the day by playing the Cedar Bluffs Wildcats. The Lady Jays came out on top of both the first and second sets, winning 25-14 and 25-13.
In the second game of the day, Pierce battled Wakefield for three sets for the win. The first set Lady Jays lost in a close contest, 25-23. However, Pierce battled back and won both the second and third sets. The second set ended 25-17 and the third set ended 25-16 both in favor of the Lady Jays.
During the last game on Saturday, Pierce faced off against Lutheran High Northeast. The Lady Jays came out on top in both sets, winning the first 25-22 and the second 25-19.
Pierce will be at home this week, facing off against Crofton on Thursday, September 16.
Pierce Lady Jays Take Down the Cedar Catholic Trojans
by Autumn Lambrecht
On September 9, the Pierce Lady Jays made their way to Wakefield and added two wins to their record.
Into the first game of the night, the Lady Jays took down the Bancroft-Rosalie/Lyons-Decatur Northeast Wolverines with two sets. The first set of the night, the Lady Jays put up a tough fight and won 25-16. For the second set, Pierce had a rougher set but still won the set 25-21.
For this game, Jaya Wachholtz had 10 kills, Kennedy Warneke had seven, Maggie Painter had three, and Elly Piper had one.
Five ace serves were taken by the team with Morgan Moeller and Warneke scoring one, and Painter scoring three.
The Lady Jays had an impressive amount of digs, taking a total of 34 digs to end the night. Moeller contributed nine digs, Larissa Meier had seven, Warneke had six, Brielle Unseld and Painter each had five digs, and Wachholtz had two.
Senior E. Piper comments, “I thought we did a great job playing together! We changed up our line up a bit after our weekend tournament in Columbus and for only using three days, I think we responded well to it well. This team is full of some talented athletes and I am excited to see where we as a team could go this season!”
The second game Pierce played was against Hartington Cedar Catholic, taking the win in two sets. In the first set of the game, the Lady Jays came out strong and won 25-16. Into the second set, they came out again and won 25-16, taking the win right from the Trojans.
By the end of the game, the Lady Jays ran up a total of 12 kills. Sophomore Wachholtz had the most kills of the game with four, Warneke, Painter, and E. Piper each had two individual kills, and Jozy Piper added one. Moeller served three aces, followed by Larissa Meier, along with teammates Unseld and Theisen, each with one ace. A total of 21 digs were picked up by the Lady Jays--Moeller with seven, Painter with five, Warneke with four, Unseld and Meier each with two, and Theisen with one.
Head coach Zach Weber says, “I’m really happy with the way we came out against BRLD. They are a solid team with two very good attackers, but we were able to keep them off the net with an aggressive serve and consistent offense. Our match against Cedar Catholic was not quite as clean, but we still got the win, which is always a good thing against a conference opponent.”
Volleyball Plays in Scotus Tournament
by Alle Koehler
The Pierce High girls volleyball team traveled to Columbus Scotus on Saturday, September 4, to play in their annual tournament and finished with a 1-3 record, and the Lady Jays walked away with a sixth place finish.
In the opening game of the day against Bishop Neumann, with the first set ending in a close score of 25-19 and the second the Lady Jays lost 25-22. Kennedy Warneke led the team in kills with three. Leading the team with ace serves was Morgan Moeller with two.
During the second game of the day, the Lady Jays came out on top beating Stanton in both sets with scores of 25-23 and 25-20. Leading the Lady Jays in kills during the Stanton game was Jaya Wachholtz with seven. Getting two ace serves was Maggie Painter, followed by Raegan Theisen and Moeller with one each. Warneke made nine digs and following right behind her was Moeller with eight.
Playing against Norfolk Catholic in the fifth place match, Pierce lost 25-18 and 25-21.
Head coach Zach Weber says, “It was a tough tournament with a lot of good teams. I thought we competed at times but effort and execution need to be much more consistent if we’re going to beat quality opponents. I’m happy we got the opportunity to see how we measure up. We know we have a long way to go.”
Pierce C-Team Hosts a Triangular
by Jana Stone
Pierce hosted a C-team triangular with Wayne and Battle Creek. Pierce won their first game against Wayne but with a tough fight, they lost their last game against Battle Creek.
The Lady Jays played against Wayne and played two sets and won both. The first set score was 25-21 and the second set score was 25-12.
Pierce’s C-team played against Battle Creek and played three sets winning one and losing two. The end score of the first set was 25-19. The end score of the second set was 25-20, and Pierce had lost the second and third sets. The final of the last set was 28-26.
Pierce C-team volleyball team will be in action again on Saturday, September 18.
Player Izzabelle Price says, “I think we play good together, but there are still some things we could improve on.”
The C-team will play again before the JV and varsity contest on Thursday, September 16, versus Crofton.
Lady Jays Freshman Volleyball Defeat the Eagles
by Raegan Theisen
The Pierce High freshman girls defeated the Lutheran High Eagles in three sets on Monday, August 30, at Lutheran High.
In the first set, the Lady Jays won 25-20. In the second set, the girls fell behind and Pierce lost 25-16. In the final set, the Lady Jays fought back and won 15-9.
When freshman player Ava Knox was asked how the game went, she said, “I think we played well together for one of our first games as a team. We still have some work to do, but practicing and working hard everyday will help us out a lot.”
