Blue Jays start volleyball season with 4-3 record

VILLISCA — The Vilisca Blue Jays volleyball team is 4-3 after finishing 2-3 at the Clarinda Tournament on Saturday.

The Blue Jays defeated East Mills and Griswold, 2-1. In the East Mills match, Villisca won the first game 21-13 and the third game 15-11.

They lost the second game 21-18. Against Griswold, the score was 25-16, 26-28 and 15-10. It was Villisca’s second win against Griswold, last week.

Against East Mills, Amanda Focht and Jill Vanderhoof led the Blue Jays with six kills and six digs each.

Sheri Schaaf had a big match against Griswold as she finished with eight kills and four serving aces.

Villisca lost their three matches to Nishnabotna (25-14, 16-25, 15-5), Shenandoah (23-25, 21-9, 15-10) and Treynor (21-16, 21-18).

Vanderhoof led the team in kills in their losses to Nishnabotna and Shenandoah, with eight.

On Thursday, the Blue Jays picked up their second win of the season, when they defeated Corning, 3-1.

Villisca won the first two games, 25-21 and 25-20. Corning however won the third game, 25-9. The Blue Jays put the match away with a 25-22 fourth game win.

Vanderhoof led the way for Villisca with 11 kills and 11 digs.

The Blue Jays had 10 total blocks in the match, with five of them (one solo) coming from Schaaf.

Morganne Haer was responsible for four of Villisca's 12 serving aces.
Wallingford was responsible for 29 of Villisca's 33 assists.

Villisca played their home opener, last Tuesday, when they defeated the Griswold Tigers, 3-0, at the Villisca High School Gym.

The Blue Jays jumped out to a 10-4 lead in the first game, only to see their lead dwindle to 10-9.

Following a timeout, Villisca scored five of the next six points to take a 15-10 lead. The Blue Jays only gave up three points the rest of the game, as they took the game, 25-14.

"I was just really happy with our first night out," Villisca Head Coach Jim Obermeier said. "We really got out there with our intensity and aggressiveness."

Villisca held the lead early in the second game, having a three-point lead at one point. Griswold had an opportunity to tie the game at 9-8, but Villisca scored a point and followed that up with a Haer ace to lead 10-8.

Griswold stuck close with the Blue Jays, taking their first lead, 19-18. From there, the two teams switched leads, until Griswold had a chance to serve for the second game. Villisca responded by scoring two straight points to tie the game at 24.

The lead switched twice as neither team was able to score a second point on several serves.

However, at 28-27, Focht had a kill to win the second game for the Blue Jays, 29-27.

“Part of our problem was, we were not making very good passes, we missed a couple of serves," Obermeier said. “I told them to refocus and be cleaner with our passes. We did a pretty good job of that."

Villisca and Griswold each took an early lead in the third game, before the Blue Jays took it back. After being tied 7-7, the Blue Jays scored 10 of the next 14 points to take a 17-11 lead. Griswold scored two straight points to close the gap. Villisca maintained their pace in the third game and held off a late rally by Griswold, winning 25-21.

Focht finished the game with 13 kills to lead the Blue Jays. The junior also had four digs and five blocks (all solo).

Schaaf had six kills, six digs and three serving aces. The Blue Jays had 20 serving aces against the Tigers. Vanderhoof led the way for Villisca with five of those serving aces, also leading in digs with six.

Abbey Wallingford set up the kills for Villisca with 20 of the team's 21 assists.

On Thursday, the Blue Jays travel West to Malvern to take on the East Mills Wolverines.