Blue Jays volleyball sweep East Mills in Malvern

MALVERN — The Villisca Blue Jays volleyball team picked up a win last Thursday against the East Mills Wolverines, 3-0.

Villisca held the lead early in the first game, taking a 12-8 lead at one point. East Mills hitters, led by junior Amanda Bazer, attacked and scored points on kills, tying the match at 15-15 and later took a 19-17 lead.

“She's by far their leading hitter, so we knew they would go to her more than anybody else,” Villisca Head Coach Jim Obermeier said about Bazer. “I was really impressed with the way she hit the ball.”

The Blue Jays however tied the game and took back the lead, winning the first game 25-21.

“I was concerned that we'd play a really good team,” Obermeier said. “Tonight the first two sets, they passed the ball really well. They let up a little bit in set three.”

Obermeier said the strategy for Bazer was to move hitter Amanda Focht up front when Bazer moved to the back row.

“It puts a lot of pressure on them and they couldn't overcome that,” he said.

East Mills stayed close in game two, but weren't able to take the lead in the middle or the end of the game. Villisca won game two 25-20.
In game three, the Wolverines jumped out to a 4-0 lead. At 9-6, Villisca rallied for four straight points to take a 10-9 lead.

At 11-10, the Blue Jays scored eight straight points, thanks to a couple of kills, as well as mistakes on East Mills’ end, to take a 19-10 lead. Villisca allowed the Wolverines to score just three points the rest of the game, as Villisca won the third game 25-13.

“We passed the ball well, we got a lot of offensive opportunities,” Obermeier said. “Our servers did a great job of keeping the ball in play, so we weren't giving up a lot of points on service errors or hitting errors.”

Sheri Schaaf led the way for Villisca with 10 kills on 17 attempts. Schaaf also had four digs, three blocks (two solo) and two serving aces.

Amanda Focht had six kills, six digs, a solo block and two serving aces, while Jill Vanderhoof had seven kills, four serving aces and six digs.

“If we can get both of our middles really involved in our offense, that will weaken their outsides, so we can go to Jill more often, we can go to Morganne [Haer] and Mikayla Dolch,” Obermeier said. “If we can have our middle hitters get a majority of the attempts, then our outside hitters will get some easy kills out of it.”

With the win, Villisca is 5-3 for the season. It's also Villisca's second win this year against East Mills, as they defeated the Wolverines at the Clarinda Tournament Sept. 3.

They have a big week this week, starting Tuesday when they head to Sidney to take on the Cowgirls. On Thursday night, Villisca hosts the Stanton Viqueens