By Scott Vanscoy
In a battle between two of the top teams in the area, the Kickapoo Chiefs held off the determined Rogersville Wildcats to win 2-1 (16-25, 25-20, 25-23) on Tuesday night. The Chiefs were led offensively by junior Azyah Green and defensively by senior libero Leah Vokolek, both committed to play at Missouri State.
Rogersville took advantage of Kickapoo’s mistakes and miscues to pull away to a 25-16 first set win. In the second set, the Chiefs regained their composure and won a close one, 25-20, which led to the third and deciding set.
In the third set, Rogersville took an early lead only to see Kickapoo fight their way back into it. Kickapoo tied the game at 13 but Rogersville went on a four-point run. The Chiefs tied it again at 20, but the Wildcats got the next point. With Kickapoo at game point, Rogersville managed to get the score to 24-23, but the final and deciding point went Kickapoo’s way.
“It was a tough game, but a good one,” said Green. “We know that Rogersville is good, and they are a rival of ours, so we just needed to play to our standard and not play lower. I was surprised at losing the first set. We worked so hard over the summer; I didn’t expect to take the ‘L’ right off the bat. The second and third sets we just bettered the ball. We said ‘hey, we need to slow it down, we need to pass, set, nothing that we don’t want to do, take small bites at a time to get where we need to go.”
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Rogersville coach Tammy Miller was proud of her girls’ effort despite their opening night loss. Playing with a young squad, the Wildcats experienced a little fatigue against the more experienced Chiefs.
“These kids didn’t quit on me,” said Miller. “I’m proud of them. We had no seniors out there, at least one freshman and one or two sophomores on the court at all times. We won’t do anything differently next game—we’re going to go at you. We needed to minimize errors in the second set; fatigue, too, played into that third set. We had some errors in the second set that we didn’t have in the first, we missed two serves in that third set. It could have been a difference, just get it in and over and let them create their own errors. We were in the net and we weren’t in the net at all the first set. I think it was fatigue, anxiety, wanting the ball. They have a determination and poise about them, I am so proud of them.”
Kickapoo senior Vokolek was surprised by her squad’s first game effort but was not surprised with Rogersville’s determination.
“Tonight we started off a little ‘iffy’,” said Vokolek. “I believe we came out and we knew that we could do it we were just a little off. The first set, we didn’t know how to find a way. We finally came together, we started communicating, started to do everything that we know how to do, everything we practiced on. The third set, we came together; not being able to break the tie for a long time didn’t break us. Chemistry within our team helped us get over that. We just have to come together and play together.”
Winning two out of three against Rogersville in their first match of the season could help set the tone for Kickapoo’s season.
“I didn’t really have any expectations for number of sets,” said Kickapoo coach Marci Johnson. “I just wanted to come out strong, play hard. Tammy Miller is always going to have her group ready so I knew it was going to be a battle. Our difference maker tonight was our timing; it gained us a few points. We just kept going at it and kept up. Our libero, Leah, works really hard; she’s a great kid and a great athlete. As far as tonight goes, you could blame first game jitters, new rotations, Rogersville is an intense place to play; there were a lot of variables. The times we were playing good, we were winning; when we weren’t, we weren’t winning. We strung a few together at the right time and pulled it through.”
Kickapoo 16 25 25
Rogersville 25 20 23
