The Rangely High School freshman volleyball team had their home opener game on Aug. 27 against Little Snake River from Wyoming. The team started the game off with “first game jitters” which is completely normal as a freshmen team. After some good rallies the team began to battle. The Panthers fell short in the first game losing 18-25. The second game the Panthers battled hard. Chloe Noel had an awesome solo block and Kaylen Geer lead the team in passing. The Panthers fought hard but again fell short losing the game 23-25. The team is showing some amazing talent and I (Coach Fielder) am excited to work more with the girls and see what the rest of our season brings.
On Friday, Aug. 26 the Rangely volleyball teams traveled to North Park High School in Walden, Colorado. The varsity played the first match of the day. Varsity took to the floor a little slow making some serving errors. The ladies found ways to get the first set win, winning 25-21. The second set saw improvement in the team’s overall serves and able to terminate play and play some great defense, taking the second set 25-17. The third and final set for the varsity proved to be the best set for serving not having any errors in the third set and passing the ball well and terminating play.
Overall, the girls played well and worked through their struggles behind the serving line. They were able to pass well and run their offense. Kaitlyn Cox led the team with four aces, with Kyrah and Karlee chipping in three aces a piece. Miley Chism led the team in points earned behind the service line with nine. Lexi LeBleu led the team in kills with nine and Kyrah Phelps was right behind her with eight. Defensively Kristiana Terry led in digs with 21.
The JV team played well and beat North Park in three sets. The first set score was 25-23, the girls were able to serve well and terminate play. The second set was a loss of 9-25 where the Panthers had a hard time passing. The third set ended 15-11, we changed things up and were able to overcome the tough loss of the second set. Aubrianna Tapia had five kills against North Park followed by Sydney Lujan with four and Addie Scott with three kills. Paola Munoz, Kenzie Satterly and Gracie Varner all had three aces and Aubrey Kenney had two aces.
On Saturday, Aug. 27, the Panthers hosted Little Snake River from Baggs, Wyoming. They met a tough team and lost in two sets. The Panthers fought to overcome a 9-1 lead from the Rattlers early in the first set but just couldn’t dig themselves out of that hole. The girls all played really hard and unfortunately just had too many errors to terminate play. The first set was lost 16-25 and the second set was 13-25. Baggs is always a tough competitor, and this time was no different with varsity losing to Baggs in five sets. Varsity came out ready to play leading most of the first set but ran into some trouble terminating play halfway through the set. Baggs took the first set 18-25. The second set the girls came back out ready to fight back and took the second set 25-17. Third set was very similar to the second set with the girls pushing through errors and playing great defense and finding Baggs open holes, winning 25-17. Fourth set the girls came out flat, not able to put plays together to terminate play, dropping the fourth set 22-25. Fifth and deciding set was back and forth up to the end but Rangely came up a little short in the end losing 13-15. The girls played and worked hard and did find some success. Defensively Kyrah Phelps had 23 digs, Miley Chism had 17, Emma Smith had 16 and Kristiana Terry had 13. Offensively the setters did a great job moving the ball around with Lexi LeBleu leading the team in kills with 11, but had multiple hitters also chip in, Kyrah Phelps with eight kills, Emmerree Wagner with seven kills and Ashlynn Ducey adding in six kills of her own. Annika Cantrell had some great blocks at the net defensively. Kaitlyn Cox led the team in aces with six and 17 earned points.
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