News Photo by James Andersen Alpena’s Tiffany Tessmer, right, blocks a kill attempt by Petoskey during the second set of a volleyball match on Wednesday at Alpena High School.

ALPENA — The Alpena High volleyball team hosted its annual Pink Out game on Wednesday. The Wildcats battled all night, forcing five sets against a solid Petoskey team.

Alpena lost in the end, but the team showed lots of effort and perseverance from start to finish. The final scores of the games were 15-25, 25-17, 16-25, 25-20, and 9-15.

“It was back and forth all night, we know we’re an evenly matched team with them,” Alpena coach Kolby Andrews said. “It kinda just comes down to unforced errors.”

Although the Wildcats kept things competitive with the Northmen all night, the first game did not go exactly as planned. Petoskey jumped out to an early 4-0 lead and did not look back. Petoskey ended up winning the set by 10 points, with a final score of 25-15.

Alpena bounced back in the second set, despite falling behind early again. The Wildcats took their first lead of the day, going up 7-5 and continued to play well with the momentum.

Tiffany Tessmer had an outstanding game, recording almost all of the Wildcats’ kills and putting a lot of pressure on the Northmen’s defense. Alpena tied up the match, after a 25-17 final score.

The momentum switched entering the third set, as Petoskey once again took down Alpena with a final score of 25-16.

Alpena stayed alive in the fourth set, narrowly defeating the Northmen with a final score of 25-20.

With the match tied up at 2-2 entering the final set, both teams were determined to take the win. Petoskey got off to a perfect start, taking a 5-0 lead over Alpena. After that start, the Wildcats were unable to recover as they took a 9-15 loss.

“In the last set, it is a race to 15. You don’t have chances to let the other team make a run and that was just a timeout to try and slow the pace down,” Andrews said. “We just needed to keep the ball off the floor and give our hitter a chance to kill the ball.”

Even though the Wildcats didn’t end up winning, the Pink Out game was a success once again.

“It’s a game that the girls always look forward to… all of these kids have somebody in their life that has been touched by cancer, whether it’s breast cancer or other forms,” Andrews said. “So even when they gave out the carnations at the beginning of the game, they all know who they were going to run to in the stands. It is a big night and it’s a fun night.”

Avery Dubey led the team in total assists with 33 and Marah Wisniewski finished with four. Tessmer led the game in kills with 18 and added four blocks. Macy Schram finished with 14 digs and Sydney Hitzelberger had eight.