Baxter makes easy work of Valley Lutheran

BAXTER — Baxter’s volleyball team had a week off from competition to hone in on a few short comings and prepare for a busy week of Iowa Star Conference action.

Head coach Scott Ranck said his Bolts’ squad needed to work on their passing. Lone senior Sydney Schmidt felt like her and her teammates needed to be better with their focus and energy.

Against Valley Lutheran on Monday, the Bolts were able to work on a lot of different things while taking care of business on the court.

Baxter made quick work of the Crusaders and won its first Iowa Star Conference South Division match with a 25-12, 25-8, 25-12 home win. The Bolts earned the sweep in 47 minutes.

“We have a big match tomorrow at North Tama so we wanted to take care of business as quickly as we could,” Ranck said. “It was a nice little run through tonight.”

Next up for the Bolts is Class 1A No. 5 North Tama. That match is 7:15 p.m. on Tuesday in Traer. And Baxter made a few tweaks to its lineup to give itself a better chance against the Redhawks.

One of those changes was moving to junior Amber Weltha to outside hitter. She played the new position against Valley Lutheran and led the Bolts with 12 kills. Weltha had a kill efficiency of .579 and the Bolts were .412 as a team.

“We tried to clean up some of our passing,” Ranck said about his week of practice. “We moved Amber to the outside to see if that helps us against North Tama. We think that can be a benefit for us.”

The Bolts had little trouble with Valley Lutheran (0-13 overall, 0-2 in conference play).

Sophomore Sophie Meyer began the night with back-to-back aces. That ended up being a theme as Baxter finished with 27 aces in all.

The closest the Crusaders got in game one was 6-5. Baxter turned an 11-8 advantage into a 17-8 lead following a long service run by sophomore Hallee Rainsbarger. During her stretch, Rainsbarger served up four consecutive aces.

Meyer went back to work behind the service line later in the set. The Bolts scored the final eight points of the frame, including four aces by Meyer and three kills by Weltha.

Meyer finished with a school-record 12 aces in the win and was 20-of-21 in serves. The Bolts were 63-of-74 in serves as a team.

“I thought we would serve well,” Ranck said. “Our percentage wasn’t as high as I would have liked it, but we did have a lot of aces.”

The Crusaders hung around early in the second set, too. But Baxter used four straight aces by Meyer to go up 16-7. Schmidt concluded the set with a trio of aces, and junior Bekka Watt blasted home a kill to put her team up 2-0.

Schmidt missed the first five matches of the season because of an ankle injury. Now pain free, the senior is ready to finish her final season in a positive way.

“It feels wonderful to be back out here with my teammates,” said Schmidt, who finished with 21 assists, three kills and five aces. “I am pain free now so that’s a really good thing in my senior year. I don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Like she did in set one, Meyer started the final set with back-to-back aces. The Bolts never trailed in the final frame. They pulled away during a long service runs by Rainsbarger. She collected four straight aces to make it 17-6. Rainsbarger had nine aces on the night.

A kill by Weltha finished off the conference sweep.

Now the Bolts can put their entire focus on North Tama.

Schmidt hopes her team can use Monday’s win as a confidence builder. She was happy with the energy against Valley Lutheran after the Bolts were not very enthusiastic at the Madrid quadrangular a week ago.

“It was a lot about energy and keeping our enthusiasm up,” Schmidt said about the extra practices last week. “I didn’t think we had a lot of energy last week in that quad, and it hurt us. We focused on our three Cs this last week — celebration, communication and coverage.

“We have been studying (North Tama) a lot. We know what they focus on. We just need to stay upbeat and have a lot of focus and energy.”

Sophomore Maddie Pierce had a team-high eight digs. Meyer had five kills and Watt added four kills. Rainsbarger and Schmidt were both 15-of-17 in serves and Weltha was a perfect 8-of-8.