High School VB: Roosevelt in Three Over Cross-Town Washington

Junior middle hitter Maggie DeJong had 14 kills and five blocks as third-ranked Roosevelt beat fourth-ranked Washington 3-0 in Greater Dakota Conference volleyball Tuesday night at the Rider Gym.

The Riders (8-2), coming off their win over Brandon Valley Thursday and making some switches to their lineup, downed the Warriors 25-14, 25-23 and 26-24.

Rough Rider's head coach Holly Lynch thought her squad played extremely well Tuesday to beat the Warriors for the second time in a month. She added, "this whole week we've been concentrating on serve receive and defense. We are tall and athletic and we have strong hitters, but we need to work on defense and serve receive if we are going to match up with other teams right now."

Seniors Bailey Jorgensen, Emma Hanson and Lexi Bordeaux each had 10 kills to pace the Warriors (7-3). Ellie Benson had 35 assists in the contest.

After winning the first set 25-14, the Riders won the final two sets in tighter fashion. The second set was tied late including at 20, 21, 22 and eventually Roosevelt gained the set 25-23 on a Warrior service error on set point. The third set WHS twice led by three points including 9-6 and 15-12. The Warriors led late 22-20, but the Riders rallied scoring six of the set's last eight points, including DeJong's game-winning kill to give RHS the victory.

"Roosevelt is a good team. When they are jumping over where our blocks are suppose to be, what are we suppose to fix? Our back court defense was fine. Our setting was phenomenal, our serve receive was good,"  said Warrior coach LaDawn Nesje. "We have to serve much more aggressively."

Lynch said, "we don't rely on one or two hitters now, we have five solid hitters that we can go to and spread the ball to make teams guess where we are going to attack."

The Warriors have lost to Roosevelt twice and top-ranked O'Gorman once. Nesje is confident they can serve better and block better heading into October.

"It's still only September. We want to be playing our best in a month, this is not our best, but we will get there," said Nesje.

The Warriors, tops in district 2AA, are not home again until Oct. 11. They are at Brookings Saturday followed by road matches at O'Gorman and a tournament in Fargo.

Roosevelt, second in 1AA, battles second-ranked Aberdeen Central Saturday before matches with Watertown, Lincoln and O'Gorman to kick-off October.