March 28, 2024

Raiders end season with regional loss

STATE CENTER — Four seniors took the floor for the final time in Collins-Maxwell/Baxter’s regional match against West Marshall on Tuesday. Although they did not come away with a win to continue the Raiders’ season, they gave the Trojans all they could handle in the four-set loss.

CMB fell 25-27, 25-20, 25-13, 25-12. Despite being swept by the Trojans in two previous matches this season, CMB came out ready to play, taking the first set 27-25.

The set went back and forth early on with kills and blocks by senior Abbie Haupert, who has been the team’s leader for the past two seasons. With the set locked up at 17-all, Haupert powered home a kill to give the Raiders a lead. Sophomore Payge Jurgens blocked a ball later on to take a 20-18 lead.

Alex Hiavacek scored on a kill to go up 22-18. Errant serves got the Trojans back in it at 23-22. Hiavacek scored to take a 24-22 edge. Two balls into the net made it 24-all. Haupert had her attempt blocked, but the ball landed wide to give CMB a 26-25 lead. A double hit by the Trojans ended the set.

CMB and West Marshall traded points in the beginning of the second set. Hiavacek put away a kill to tie it up at three. Haupert followed up to take a 4-3 edge. The very next serve landed long to tie up the score again. Abbey Applegate scored one of her three aces to start a run for CMB. Haupert had back to back aces to give the team a 12-5 lead.

West Marshall called a timeout, and it turned out to be a well-used one. The Trojans came out on a heater, scoring seven straight points to tie the score at 12. Hiavacek pinpointed a kill in the corner to give CMB a 14-12 lead, but the Trojans fought back to tie at 15. Senior Hannah McWhirter scored on a strong serve to tie it up at 18. W. M. went on a run from there, closing out the set on an ace by senior Jennifer Davis.

The final two sets were far less competitive than the first two. CMB took an early 3-1 lead on a kill by Haupert. W. M. came back to take a 5-4 advantage.

Jurgenns had a block to tie it at seven, but the Trojans got ahead and would not look back for the remainder of the set, or the match for that matter.

Despite kills by Hiavacek and Jurgens, along with a couple more blocks by Haupert, CMB fell 25-13 and 25-12 in the last two sets. The Raiders were unable to return several strong aces by Trojan junior Mackenzie Coberly.

The match ends a roller coaster type of season for the Raiders. CMB went on several runs during the year, the best of which came at the end of September, when the Raiders took four straight matches, all within the Heart of Iowa Conference.

Haupert finished the season ninth in the conference in kills with 187 and 10th in blocks with 49. Applegate was third in the conference with 53 ace serves.

She landed 88.6 percent of all her serve attempts and averaged .76 aces per set played. Jurgens was not far behind her teammate, landing sixth in the conference with 49 aces. She connected on 91 percent of her attempts. Mackenzie Schmitz was fourth in the HOI in assists with 330.