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Flivvers too much to handle for Braves

Austin Hemmingson | Daily Press Gladstone’s Chloe Grenier (5) serves while teammate Ahna Larson waits for the serve during Thursday’s match against Kingsford at Gladstone.

GLADSTONE — In a preview of two teams who will be attending the Great Northern Conference volleyball tournament Saturday, it was Kingsford coming out with the upper hand in a 3-0 (25-19, 25-12, 26-24) sweep over conference foe Gladstone here Thursday.

The Flivvers got off to a strong start behind a four-point service run from Maggie Strehlow to build a 7-4 lead in the opening frame. The Braves (4-7) kept within striking distance and eventually tied the score at 16 after a tip-kill by Ahna Larson, who was playing as a left hitter instead of her normal libero position.

Kingsford pulled ahead 21-16 after a four-point run by Kate Cook, but Larson served for three straight points to bring the Braves within 21-19. However, a service error gave possession back to the Flivvers and Lexi Roberge finished the set with a three-point run.

“In the first set it was kind of neck-and-neck,” Braves’ coach Bill Lawrence said. “We were playing a rotation that we typically wouldn’t play, where we kept a couple players out. We kept Megan Crow and Amber King-Rabitoy out because we’re preparing for Saturday’s tournament and neither of them can make it, so that whole rotation was based around getting practice for that. I thought it worked well.”

The Flivvers had little trouble in the second set, building a 15-7 lead and then expanding it to 23-7 behind an eight-point run by Katherine Erickson to put it out of reach. Gladstone briefly responded with a four-point run by Chloe Grenier to make it 23-12, but that’s as close as it would get.

“I think we struggled a little bit in terms of our discipline (in the first set),” Flivvers’ coach Jaclynn Kreider said. “We started cheating off the net, we were having a lot of net errors in terms of blocks off of our hands and watching it roll down in front of us, so then we started focusing on staying disciplined and not cheating in set No. 2, and making sure that we keep doing what we need to do to get better towards the end of the season, and not allowing ourselves to slow down.”

The Braves fell behind 10-5 and 15-11 in the third set before rallying to tie it at 19 on a kill by Crow, then went ahead 22-21 on a tip-kill by Larson. After the Flivvers got possession back and tied the score at 23, the Braves went up 24-23 to force a Kingsford timeout. Out of the timeout, the Flivvers scored three straight points and finished the match with a kill by Christy Glodowski.

“We try to practice (being resilient) a lot in practice, and make sure the girls are running drills so that they can play from behind or be in tight games and still feel like we can pull it out in the end by just focusing on the fundamentals and doing the things we’ve been asking them to,” Kreider said. “In the end, if we do that, we’ve got a good team this year and we’re tall and athletic at the net. If we can stay disciplined and get through it, we’ve got the confidence we can pull it out.”

The Braves, who went back to a more original rotation in the second set, returned to their rotation from the first set in the final frame.

“In the second set, we went back to what the girls like for a rotation and we just failed to execute basics over and over. Then, we went back to the original first set lineup and put Megan in and did some other substituting, and it was 24-26, so nobody can complain about that,” Lawrence said. “It was a good showing for the girls to see that we can do it with that different set of rotations. It’s really a different set of rotations, but at 24-26, it shows it can work.”

Strehlow led the Flivvers with eight kills seven digs and one block; Glodowski added six kills, two aces, two digs and one block; Erickson had 14 digs and three aces; Brooke Kriegl had 12 digs and three aces; Alli Doolittle had seven kills, two digs and one block; Cook had three kills, three blocks and an ace; Hannah Strutz had three kills; Roberge had six digs; and Kali Dooley chipped in with five digs.

Kingsford also won the jayvee match 2-0.

Each team returns to action in the GNC tournament Saturday at Gladstone at 10:30 a.m. EDT.

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