March 28, 2024

Ranked Nevada overwhelms Mustang netters

MONROE — Prairie City-Monroe coach Krystal Ehn got a good look at Class 3A No. 4 Nevada on Thursday night.

While things didn’t go as planned, Ehn is confident her squad will be better prepared if the Mustangs and Cubs meet again in the regional tournament.

If the two squads meet again, it will be in the Region 3 finals in Newton on Nov. 3.

Nevada had little trouble in the first meeting though. PCM got better with each set but couldn’t string together enough runs to keep pace with the high-powered Cubs as Nevada scored the 25-7, 25-12, 25-14 road victory during Heart of Iowa Conference play.

“They have really tall girls. They have returning hitters that have played under their previous coach for a long time. They are just good hitters,” Ehn said. “They have played together for a long time. We are building a pretty young team.”

PCM stayed close early on in the opening set, but Nevada used an 11-0 run to pull ahead for good. Abby Bremer had five blocks during that stretch, then Erin Francis and Abby Stephenson finished off the win.

Francis had an ace and a kill in the final six points and Stephenson collected two kills in that span.

“Our serving was not on tonight. We had servers who were not on par,” Ehn said. “We just struggled getting into a rhythm.”

The Mustangs were better in the second set. They once again were within 6-4 early and then even came within 15-11 on a Mackenzie Messick tip later in the frame.

The Cubs though used an impressive service run from Amaris Hornbuckle to seize control. The run was 10 points, and Hornbuckle served up five aces during that span. Stephenson added two more kills, too.

“They got less intimidated by their hitters,” Ehn said about PCM’s improvement in each set. “I had to tell them and remind them that everyone makes mistakes. We have to make them make mistakes. We had to play our game not their game.”

The Mustangs got to 14 points in the final set, but Nevada jumped out to a 10-3 lead and never looked back. Stephenson had four kills to lead the way and she had two more kills later to push the Cubs lead to 22-9.

Messick and Katie VandeWall recorded back-to-back kills and Messick finished a 5-0 spurt with an ace.

But Kati Cassabaum’s tip that found a hole ended the match. Cassabaum came into the night with a team-high 200 kills.

It’ll be a tough task to knock off Nevada in the postseason. The Cubs reached the 3A semifinals last year, but Ehn and PCM will have a little less than a month to improve and figure out a way to pull off the upset.

“We are going to practice the rest of the season to beat them in the playoffs,” Ehn said. “That’s our goal. We want to beat them when we play them in the third round of the playoffs.

“We’ll work on a lot of things from now until we play them again. We know how they play now, and we’ll improve for next time. We’re going to be ready.”

The loss snapped PCM’s two-game win streak. The Mustangs are now 7-18 overall and 2-5 in HOIC play.

Nevada is now 23-7 overall and 6-0 in conference play. All seven losses have come to other ranked teams.

The Mustangs’ final home match will be Thursday against Roland-Story. Varsity action begins at around 7 p.m.