Tigerhawks lose opener to strong Lady Jays

Colfax-Mingo’s Meranda McKinney goes up for the ball Thursday in action against Bondurant-Farrar in Colfax. The Tigerhawks dropped their opener. Craig Murphy/Daily News

E-mail this story

Print this story

Share

COLFAX — The good news about Thursday’s volleyball season opener against Bondurant-Farrar was it gave Colfax-Mingo an early progress report. The bad news: C-M has a blemish in the record to show for it. B-F was strong as expected, cruising to an easy 25-11, 25-11, 25-15 win over the host Tigerhawks in Heart of Iowa Conference play. C-M fell to 0-1 on the year, while the Lady Jays improved to 4-0. “The good side is we got to find out where we’re at,” C-M coach Brian Warrick said. “If we clean up the mistakes, we’re a decent team. But we start 0-1.” The Lady Jays took control of the match early. Leading the first game 4-2, B-F went on an 11-0 run to put the game away. In the second game, C-M briefly led 1-0 before B-F responded with eight straight points. Strong serving by Brittany Harmison, including an ace, brought the Tigerhawks back to within 8-5. The Lady Jays put their collective foot down and pulled away with a 12-0 run to secure the win. C-M played tough in the first part of the third game. A string of strong serves by Josie Redman, including an ace, put the home team up 8-4. B-F came back with a 7-0 run to take the lead for good and later in the game had another 7-0 run. The longest runs of the night for C-M were two 4-0 runs. “We’d get a little run, serve well, then we’d serve into the net,” Warrick lamented. Getting the ball over the net in general was a problem for the Tigerhawks on Thursday. “Extra time is going to be spent tomorrow in hitting practice,” Warrick said. “We hit a lot of balls into the net.” The coach pointed to court awareness as something that needs to be fixed. “The girls need to know where they are as they attempt to hit or set,” he said. “If you’re a foot away from the net and you try to hit it like you’re 10 feet away, that’s why it goes into the net.” Warrick was encouraged by what he saw in the final game. “I was proud of how we played in the third game,” he said. “The girls played more like a team. They were talking a lot more.” B-F was strong last year and returns six seniors, including star Trisha Rooney. “Bondurant is a good team,” Warrick said. “They have some good players. I knew it would be tough. I was just surprised by the number of errors we had.”

At Colfax Bondurant-Farrar def. Colfax-Mingo 25-11, 25-11, 25-15 C-M individual statistics KILLS: Meg Alexander 2, Brittany Harmison 2, Sam Hawbaker 2. DIGS: Katy Davidson 13, Meranda McKinney 2. ACES: Josie Redman 1, Harmison 1. ASSISTS: Brooke Berkey 4, Harmison 3. BLOCKS: Afton Vander Schel 2.