Leyton falls to Crawford, 3-1, misses state

The Leyton High volleyball team (24-9) ended its season early for the second consecutive year, as it fell to the Crawford Rams (22-5) in four sets on Thursday night in the D2-6 district final in Alliance. The Rams won by scores of 25-17, 25-18, 18-25 and 25-10.

With the win, Crawford has locked up a spot in the Class D2 state tournament in Lincoln beginning Thursday, Nov. 13. The Rams will square off against Giltner (24-4) - the team that ended Leyton’s 2013 season in the district final - in the first round.

The Warriors’ star duo of outside hitter Shaela Jenkins and right side Kaitlyn Berner struggled to find a rhythm early on. The two combined for just 14 kills over the four-set match. They also totaled eight errors in a collective 41 kill attempts.

Leyton head coach Jodi Craig said her team didn’t come out as strong as she hoped it would.

“We just didn’t come out and play with the confidence that I thought we would, having been to the district final in previous years,” Craig said. “We struggled with serve receive which directly affected our offensive opportunities. Our setters worked their tails off to get the ball to our hitters off of mediocre passes, but we couldn’t get the quality hits we normally would due to being out of system.”

Leyton will graduate seniors Jenkins, Berner and middle hitter Dani McKay from this year’s team. Those three formed an excellent core of leaders and Craig says they will be missed.

It was a rather sore ending to the season for another quality Leyton team, but in Craig’s eyes, the season was still very successful.

“This small but mighty set of three seniors will be missed, but it had four very successful seasons of Warrior volleyball to be proud of,” Craig said. “When you can finish a season with twice as many wins than losses, it’s still a success.”