On Sept. 6, the Bowman County Bulldogs traveled to Buffalo to face the Harding County Ranchers.
By JENNIFER HOLECEK
On Sept. 6, the Bowman County Bulldogs traveled to Buffalo to face the Harding County Ranchers. The Bulldogs struggled against the Ranchers’ very strong volleyball program. The C squad lost 0-2, B squad 0-2, and the Varsity lost 0-3. The varsity worked hard the whole match, but due to some missed serves, hitting errors, and HC’s aggressive offense, the varsity wasn’t able to come out on top.
Taking lessons from Tuesday’s loss to HC, the teams moved forward to their first home match against Dickinson Trinity on Thursday, Sept. 8. The C squad won 2-0, the B squad lost 0-2, and the varsity lost 1-3. All squads showed improvement from the Harding County game to the Trinity game. The varsity played excellent defense, putting up 80 digs and 12 blocks over the 4 sets of the match.
The C squad stayed home on Saturday to play in the Bowman County C tournament, which Coach Mia Stafford will recap in a separate article. The Varsity traveled to Watford City for a tournament on Saturday. We started out looking a little rougher in the morning, but play improved as the day went on. We placed third in the pool and moved on to the gold (or top) bracket within the tournament. The Bulldogs opened tournament play against Watford City, whom we played earlier in the day. We lost against them, but we played a much better match than the first match of the day. The next match was against Divide County, which was lost in a heart-breaking third set (14-16). Divide County battled back at the end to come from behind and put us out of the tournament.
The varsity moved forward after a tougher week of some losses to play Richardton-Taylor Raiders on Sept. 13. Determined to make our last week’s lessons work for us, the girls came out with an attitude to play every point in the moment and not get lost in past points’ mistakes. This showed in the scores, as the varsity swept the Raiders on their home court. The first set was 25-21, the second 25-20, and the girls battled back from being down by 8 points to win the third at 25-23. Our offense, which struggled earlier in the season, really came alive with 28 kills. The ball was spread around well, with Kelsey Goodshield, a sophomore, leading the team with 7 kills. Cassidy Walby, Ellie Stafford, and Lindsey Dix all had 5 kills each. Kaylee Septon put up 4 kills, and Lindsey Narum, Leslie Roen, and Josie Smyle all contributed 1 each. Setters Septon and Smyle put up 10 assists each. On defense, libero Skylar Ruggles had 12 digs and middle blockers Stafford and Goodshield led with 4 blocks each.
The B and C squads both swept their games as well, showing major improvements in their communication on the court, transitioning off the net, and cleaning up their hitting errors. It has been an exciting season so far to see how well all squads are improving with every match. The Bulldogs travel to Killdeer on Sept. 14, and then to Bison on Saturday, Sept. 17, before hosting Dickinson High JV at home on Sept. 22 for Parent’s Night.
Jennifer Holecek is the head volleyball coach for Bowman County.
