STUART — Elgin Public-Pope John split a pair of matches Thursday night at the Stuart Triangular.
The Wolfpack dispatched Stuart in two sets in the first match that night.
Playing in a gymnasium where the temperature was 92 degrees, the Wolfpack used their superior front row and fine back row play to take down the Broncos who are being coached by Jordan (Mescher) Dexter, a former EPPJ player.
Dexter’s coaching has the Lady Broncos playing well despite not having enough players to scrimmage during practice.
“The girls wanted to get that win under their belt going into CWC because we know that they’re more talented than they have been. I thought they came together. It was a good team win to get Stuart.”
Braelyn Martinsen led hitters with 12 kills. Gentry Zwingman led in serve receive with 12.
Second match
Chambers/Wheeler Central found a way to squeeze out a three-set victory over the Wolfpack.
Coach Luettel was quick to say the heat in the gym was not why EPPJ lost the match.
“You don’t want to pin it all on that (the heat) because they got to come out and show up in any sort of environment,” the coach said.
“We just didn’t trust each other tonight. We had a lot of hesitation and a lot of second guessing. We looked at each other instead of just going for the ball and we had way too many dropped balls, so we didn’t execute when we needed to.”
After winning the first set 25-22, CWC fell behind early in Set #2. EPPJ capitalized on pinpoint serving from Gentry Zwingman to put together a five-point run. Doing damage at the net were Mady Kurpgeweit and Lillian Moser blocking. Moser had a kill during the run.
EPPJ pulled out to a 20 to 15 lead then saw CWC fight back to tie the score at 24-all.
…see more at this week’s Elgin Review.
