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Posen struggles in loss to Thunderbolts

POSEN-Posen volleyball coach Laurie Maynard didn’t have much to say Tuesday after the her team finished a North Star League match against Mio.

The Vikings’ play said more than enough.

After a competitive first set, the Vikings struggled the rest of the night and dropped the match to the Thunderbolts in three sets: 25-20, 25-15 and 25-8.

Posen couldn’t find a rhythm at all on Tuesday and struggled in seemingly every aspect of the game. Serves fell short and the Vikings had trouble returning Mio’s. Attacks went out of bounds or were easily returned by Mio’s defense. Aces were few and far between.

“The serves were horrible. Our passes were decent tonight, but we didn’t move our feet, we didn’t cover (and) the girls just expected someone else to do the job,” Maynard said. “They just were not in the game tonight.”

Mio took a commanding 10-4 lead to start the second set and although Posen was able to score points in a few bunches, the Thunderbolts proved hard to stop. With a front line led by Kristina Clover, Karley Auten and Emily Mangutz, the Thunderbolts were able to attack consistently and were able to score several points from the service line.

Posen closed the gap to 20-15 in the second set before Mio scored the set’s final five points.

Clover led Mio with eight kills, Auten had seven and Mangutz had three aces and four kills.

The Thunderbolts kept rolling into the third set, scoring the first seven points. Cassidy Kamen scored four points on aces and Mio opened a 9-1 after the first 10 volleys.

There wasn’t much Posen could do to fight back down the stretch and the few points the Vikings did score either came on short serves or attacking errors by Mio.

Posen went back-and-forth with Mio in the opening set and the Vikings led 16-12 midway through the set. Trailing 17-14 late, the Thunderbolts rallied for the next six points to make a 20-17 lead. Posen rallied to make it 20-19, but the Vikings were outscored 5-1 to end the set.

After the match, Maynard huddled her team together and said afterward that players easily identified several areas for improvement.

“(We talked) about all the many things we need to work on on Thursday. They all easily volunteered, ‘Yeah we need to do this, we need to do that.’ Our leaders weren’t out there (and) we’re missing Sam of course, but as the girls said themselves Sam is not the team,” Maynard said, “They could have played a lot better.”

Posen hosts Whittemore-Prescott on Thursday.

James Andersen can be reached via email at sports@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5694. Follow James on Twitter @ja_alpenanews.

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