Raiders sweep Kimball in home finale, prepare for sub district tourney

With a 3-0 win over Kimball last night at the Cabela's Athletic Facility, the Sidney volleyball team has clinched home-court advantage for the upcoming sub-district tournament.

The Red Raiders were never in danger as they stopped Kimball (Class C2) by set scores of 25-14, 25-17 and 25-16 in this non-district match.

Though the official pairings and rankings will not be released until tomorrow, Sidney (20-10) presently finds itself in 10th place among all Nebraska Class B schools. With an average point total of 42.67 the Raiders lead district opponents Gering (40.77), Scottsbluff (39.07) and Alliance (38.55). The Raiders district companions find themselves in 15th, 19th and 24th place respectively.

By winning its regular-season district title, Sidney will face Alliance in the sub-district opener while Scottsbluff will pair up with Gering. The two winners will meet to determine the champion.

"I think we'll be ready. We have four more practices and we've been working very hard," said Cody Rowley who led the Raiders with 22 set assists. "We have to sharpen our fundamentals and try to perfect our serve-receive,"

But for brief periods early in sets two and three, Sidney never trailed. Annalise Lecher and Abbi Porter helped get the Raiders going in the right direction in set one. Lecher's kill gave Sidney a 2-0 lead while Porter's slam was good for 4-0. In between, Porter and Lecher teamed up for an ace-block.

Savanna Rosenbaum blocked another Kimball kill attempt for a six-point lead at 8-2. It was the largest lead the Raiders could manage until Cody Rowley took to the serve at 14-9. A couple of Porter kills and another by Lecher kept Rowley at the line for a five-point run and a 19-9 lead.

The set ended on a Longhorns service error.

"It seems like we started out the first set a little slow and played to their level," said Sarah Mahr, who dropped four ace serves on Kimball. "We raised (our level) up and finished out well. I think we're where we need to be entering sub districts. We'll continue to work hard."

Porter put a stop to Kimball's first lead of the night with a kill to tie the second set at 1-1. The Raiders went on to a 5-1 lead and never again trailed. That early advantage was accomplished with another Porter kill and and an ace by Rowley.

In between, a Nichele Romick to Rowley to Lecher exchange led to the latter's touch shot to a vacant spot in Longhorn territory.

Vanessa Riley's ace gave Sidney another 8-2 lead before the Longhorns started to reel the Raiders back in. But four points was as close as Kimball could get despite some strong play at the net from the Longhorns' Danika Daum and Kelly Green.

"We've been working on speeding up our offense," Rowley said. "They have a slow offense, which made it a little harder for us to set up the way we wanted to."

The Longhorns managed two more brief leads early in game three before the Raiders reasserted their dominance. Two quick kills from Porter erased the Longhorns 1-0 lead. After Kimball took another lead at 3-2 Porter again drove home a kill shot to even the contest. Mahr pushed over a soft shot at 3-3 to give Sidney the lead for good.

When the Longhorns threatened to make a close game of it Maddi Porter dropped two aces on Kimball to foil the effort. A couple of kills by Kimball's Mikayla Fiehtner followed shortly after Porter's aces, but the visitors could never sustain any momentum.

A pair of Mahr aces and a Rosenbaum kill gave Sidney the match.

"We'll have a couple of practices left and watch some film before districts," said Rosenbaum. "We'll work on our coverage and serve-receive and try to speed our offense up. We'll be ready to go."

Abbi Porter led the Raiders with 14 kills while Mahr and Rowley each collected five.

Lecher and Rosenbaum drove home four kill shots each.

In addition to Mahr's four aces, Abbi Porter and Rowley added three apiece while Maddi Porter and Riley scored with two each. Rowley made only one service error in 23 attempts.

Defensively, Abbi Porter and Rosenbaum had five and two-ace blocks respectively. Maddi Porter led the diggers with 12 while Sarah Mahr had six and Vanessa Riley five.

As usual, Rowley (22) and Emily Mahr (8) led the Raiders in set assists.