RANGELY I The Rangely High School girls’ volleyball team travel to Plateau Valley on Friday and played outstanding ball in game one, came back after losing game two but fell in game five.
Coach Jimmie Mergelman said, “We started off really well in game one, things just did not go our way in game two.”
The team was short a couple athletes for the match but saw some young players getting extremely valuable time on the floor.
In game one, the defensive play was outstanding, led by Justyne Dembowski with 15 digs and Halie Elam with 14. The sister duo of Kassidy and Katelyn Brown had 12 digs each, followed by the sister act Lindzey and Skylar Thacker, who added 11 and eight digs, respectively.
Sarah Connor and Katelyn Brown were extremely aggressive on the nets coming up with 11 and 10 blocks in the match.
The team served approximately 86 percent behind 16 serves from Dembowski while Katelynn Brown added 14, Halie Elam added 12 and Kassidy Brown 11.
The team seemed to have a balanced effort defensively but had a difficult time in getting an attack to launch.
Katelynn Brown had 15 kills, Sarah Connor added eight and Katye Allred had five.
It was a long match defensively when the opponents hold the Panther girls’ offense to 30 total kills.
The team at times looked outstanding, and they certainly controlled the the tempo in game one. They dictated that game with an aggressive offense and solid defensive play at the net in the games they won.
Mergelman said she hopes to see that level of play as they travel to Vail Christian tonight, host Meeker on Friday night, then travel once again for Saturday play at Cedaredge.
This is a huge weekend for the Panthers as they have three important league games, Mergelman said.
The Rangely girls can shake up the entire league standing in three days if they play the type of volleyball they showed they can in game one last weekend, she said.
