September 23, 2019 at 10:57 a.m.
River Valley edges Dodgers in SWC match
Scores were:
Game 1: 25-23, Dodgeville
Game 2: 25-20 River Valley
Game 3: 25-17 Dodgeville
Game 4: 25-21 River Valley
Game 5: 15-11 River Valley
Dodgeville coach Nicole Hottmann said there were many solid performances the Dodger squad.
"JoJo Heimerl did a phenomenal job for us all the way around the court, with 13 attack kills, one block kill, and five defensive digs," the coach said. "Also, Anna Ruhland had 10 attack kills, 3 block kills, and had a strong serving game for us."
One of the injured starters returned and contributed.
"Olivia Argall (who is still recovering from a bad ankle sprain) put up eight attack kills and five block kills for the team," Hottmann added.
Dodgeville setter Grace Borne put up 40 assists, one tip kills, and one block kill.
"Lucy Heimerl and Alyssa Alfred did a solid job for us putting up several defensive digs along with very strong serve receive play out of both players," the coach said about her back row players.
"We battled with Valley who is a very competitive team," she said. "It was a great match-up that lasted nearly three hours and in the end it came down to too many errors on our side of the net (we missed 13 serves for example). Moving forward, we need to do a better job of taking care of the controllable plays on our own side of the net. In tight games like this one, sometimes it boils down to the team that makes the fewest amount of mistakes.
"We missed too many serves, along with having too many blocking errors in game five that ultimately caught up with us in the end," Hottmann added. "Valley does a great job with ball placement, and despite the strong game defensively that we put up, they effectively found openings on our side of the net. We look forward to another competitive match with them in October."
