“This is the first time Rothsay has been added to our schedule for several years and we were excited for the matchup,” stated Pelican Rapids Head Coach Heidi Isaman.  “The Rothsay gym was full of energy as the Tigers were celebrating their homecoming week.  This energy made it a great place to play volleyball tonight. The Vikings had a little rocky start with some inconsistency in our front row execution.  Our setting was a bit inconsistent and we were not as aggressive at the net as we should have been.”

Leaders for Pelican Rapids were Ellie Welch (9 kills, 1 ace, 6 assists), Anna Roisum (16 assists, 5 kills), Morgan Korf (4 aces, 12 digs, 2 assists), Kelsey Isaman (6 kills, 7 digs, 2 aces), Hazel Haugrud (5 digs) and Claudia Gurath (5 kills).

“We serve received well tonight, but our inconsistency at the net lowered the amount of kills we were hoping to achieve,” noted Coach Isaman.  “We battled to get a tight win in the first set and we knew we needed to get more aggressive at the net in set two and clean up our unearned points given to the Tigers.  Setters Anna Roisum and Ellie Welch stepped up and started to set up to the net more consistently and our hitters responded.  Outside hitter Kelsey Isaman hit the ball well tonight and middle hitter Ellie Welch really started to bring the power as right side hitter Marie Backstrom had a great 9 point serving run as we were able to win set two.  Set three we backed off our aggressiveness again and gave the Tigers too many opportunities to get in system.  Rothsay used those opportunities well and started to hit the ball hard from the outside.  Libero Morgan Korf did a great job of reading their outside hitter and digging her up and right side hitter Claudia Gurath did a great job of staying aggressive and attacking the open spot on the court.  A strong 6 point serving run from Morgan helped us increase the gap and we held strong to with the set and the match.”

Individual leaders for the Tigers included Elli Meyer (16/16 serving, 24 assists, 8 digs, 5 kills), Katie Reber (10/11 serving, 3 aces), Adriana Willits (3 kills, 2 blocks) and Kenadi Carlsrud (14 kills, 2 blocks, 15 digs).

“While the Tigers definitely made our share of highlight-reel plays, our passing, for much of the night (1.3 passing average), was not up to the standard we have set this season,” commented Rothsay Head Coach John Reber. “The Vikings' aggressive serving, coupled with some second-guessing on our side of the net, led to a few big runs for the visitors. Although we served at an acceptable accuracy (92%), we were unable to chain together big runs of our own. While the scoreboard wasn't in our favor, I thought our players displayed great effort for a capacity crowd, and we found some concepts that we can use in the game plan going forward this season.”

Pelican Rapids will now prepare for their homecoming week next week and a big conference match with Perham next Thursday.

Rothsay will host Hillcrest in a Little Eight Conference contest on Monday night.