Bobcats hold off Kernels late for volleyball victory

MITCHELL — The Mitchell High School volleyball team went the distance again on Tuesday night and came up on the short side against Eastern South Dakota Conference foe Brookings.

The Bobcats staved off a late charge and claimed the match in five sets at the MHS Gym. Set scores were 24-26, 25-13, 25-22, 18-25 and 15-11.

The match was an even one most of the way, MHS coach Deb Thill said, but the Kernels were hurt in the end by too many unforced errors.

“The one place that we felt that Brookings did a lot better than us was in the serve-receive game,” Thill said. “Their setter was in system more than our setter was. We felt that was where the match was decided. We know that serve-and-pass is where games are going to be won and lost. … I give our kids credit because we asked our kids to scrap and dig and fight when it was getting tough, and they did that.”

Against a Brookings squad that did not have a player taller than 5-foot-10 on the roster, Mitchell was able to get its blocking game going at the net, recording 12 total team blocks in the match.

“We really did have a nice night at the net,” Thill said. “We changed our defense some. We have to keep being smart with how we read hitters at the net but I think we’re a good athletic team and we have to keep working at it.”

For Mitchell, Addie Siemsen had three aces, five kills, 30 assists and 20 digs. Paige Guthmiller had 16 digs. Halle Haring had six blocks and seven kills. Sawyer Stoebner had 12 kills and Lauren Van Overschelde had eight kills, with four blocks from Tianna Meadows.

Brookings had nine aces, including four from Tess Burns. Macy Even had 17 kills, with 16 from Rylee Thompson for the Bobcats (9-7). Even had 20 digs, as did Kylie Moe and Kymber Buys had 46 assists.

Mitchell (3-8, 1-5 ESD) will play at fourth-ranked Watertown on Thursday, the first of five consecutive road matches over the final 10 days of September. Mitchell’s match with Brookings on Tuesday was its sixth home match of the season, with only two road trips so far this season.

“Now we start our road journey,” Thill said. “We’ve been home a lot and we’re going to be on the road a bunch here. … It’s going to be tough for our kids but we have shown some resilience.”

Traxler is the assistant editor and sports editor for the Mitchell Republic. He’s worked for the newspaper since 2014 and has covered a wide variety of topics. He can be reached at mtraxler@mitchellrepublic.com.