Raiders beat Park, now look forward to section tournament

Senior night brought out the best in the Hastings volleyball team. Last Tuesday, Hastings celebrated its four seniors with a solid, 3-0 win over Park. Hastings won 25-13, 25-18 and 25-21.

“There’s just something about senior night,” coach Rita Girgen said. “We just had really good energy, and playing Park brings out a different team from us.”

Hastings has four seniors as part of this year’s team. Devon Santelman, Tabitha McCloud and Cydney Lovich are all on the court and Sarah Jones is the team’s manager.

All four were honored before the game.

Hastings had a strong night from its seniors. Santelman led the team in serve-receive average (2.0) and digs (10).

Lovich had eight kills and McCloud had eight set assists.

Other stats looked like this:

Biancca DuFour led the way in kills with 10.

Kaylyn Nicklay had 17 set assists.

Grace Rolloff had one service ace and 17 serving points.

“She did a really good job for us in the back row,” Girgen said.

Courtney Van De Velde had eight serving points.

DuFour and Nicklay each had six digs.

DuFour, Sabrina Astar, Lovich and Van De Velde each had one block assist.

Vs WBL

While things went well against Park on Tuesday, they didn’t go quite as well on Thursday against White Bear Lake. Hastings jumped out quick and won the first two games before losing the next three to fall to the Bears.

Hastings won the first game, 25-14, and the second, 25-22.

White Bear Lake rallied, then, and won games three and four, 25-20 and 25-23, to force a game five.

The Bears won that one, 15-4.

“There’s not a bright spot in that one,” Girgen said. “It was bad. That was a match we should have won. After winning the first two sets, we underestimated that team. It’s just something, coming in to sections, that we need to be very careful about. We can’t overlook anybody.”

DuFour and Lovich led Hastings in kills with eight. Heather Petersen had seven.

Nicklay had 19 set assists. McCloud had seven.

Nicklay had six service aces and Santelman had five.

Nicklay and Santelman each had 12 serving points. Rolloff had 11.

Santelman led Hastings in digs with nine. Shelby Wassink had seven and Nicklay had six.

DuFour had a solo block. Astar had two assists. DuFour and Lovich each had one.

Sections

The section seeding meeting is planned for Sunday.

Hastings is hoping to earn a top eight seed, which would mean a home playoff match. That Raiders look to be either No. 8 or No. 9 right now.

The first playoff game is Wednesday.

Tags: raider volleyball, sports, hastings, minnesota, prep