TINA L. SCOTT
EDITOR
Last Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, the Merrill Girls Varsity Volleyball Team welcomed Wausau West to Merrill for a Conference match-up on their home court and won 3-0 in three sets.
“Tonight was our home opener and I couldn’t have asked for it to go any other way!” Merrill Varsity Girls Volleyball Head Coach Kasie Holt said. “Our hitting was phenomenal with Grace Hoff and Brooklyn Harding leading us each with five kills for the night.”
“Brooklyn had 17 hitting attempts and 0 errors, which is very impressive,” she said. “Kaela Clerveaux ended the night with 15 assists; she was really able to move the ball around and run plays that we have been working on in practice.”
“Our aggressive serving also contributed to our win,” Holt said. “There were times where the girls were serving 5-7 times in a row.”
“Wausau West struggled to get their offense going, but when they were able to get ahold of it, our defense was there waiting to dig it up. Kendell Klug led the team with 11 digs, and Ava Detert followed closely behind with 10.”
“The girls were able to keep high energy through the entire match and never let up,” Holt said.”
Box Score
Wausau West @ Merrill
Merrill won 3-0 in 3 sets: 25-17, 25-10, 25-15
This past Saturday, Sept. 14, the Merrill Girls played host at the Merrill Invitational Volleyball Tournament and welcomed seven other teams to the Merrill High School Fieldhouse. Varsity Girls from Athens, Chippewa Falls, Edgar, Medford, Newman Catholic, Stanley-Boyd, and Winneconne high schools all came to compete. Merrill’s Varsity Girls Team played against Athens, Edgar, Winneconne, and Stanley-Boyd and ended their day 2-2.
“In pool play we beat Athens 2-0 (26-24, 25-16) and Winneconne 2-0 (25-23, 25-19),” Holt said. “We started off the morning really strong, which we’ve struggled a bit to do in other tournaments. At the time, Winneconne was undefeated and ranked #4 in Division 2. Winneconne is in our Regional for playoffs, so that win was really big for us.”
“Unfortunately, in the first few points of our third game against Edgar, one of their players came under the net and our starting right side hitter, Brooklyn Harding, landed on her and rolled her ankle pretty badly,” she said. “Brooklyn has really been a spark for us, bringing positive energy both on and off the court – seeing her hurt was hard for us as a team to come back from.”
“We gave it our best fight, but we ended up falling to Edgar 0-2 (17-25, 20-25),” Holt said, “And then [to] Stanley-Boyd 0-2 (17-25, 13-25).”