The #9 (2A) Aplington-Parkersburg volleyball team was firing on all cylinders in Monday’s 3-0 sweep of East Sac County, as aired on 104.9 KLMJ and RadioOnTheGo’s YouTube channel. In a thorough performance, the Falcons won 25-8, 25-12, 25-16.
The team was crisp in most areas, allowing them to jump out to a hot start and play with comfortable margins throughout. 10 service aces and only three errors set the tone for the night, and the passing set up dynamic attacking. Senior middle Zoey Uhlenhopp cranked up the intensity, recording a career-high 17 kills in a three-set match.
Junior setter Julia Mostek says she was confident in finding the hot hitters on every play.
“We have amazing hitters throughout, right middle and left, so it’s amazing that I can move the ball everywhere,” Mostek says. “Moving the ball everywhere just makes it easier for them to have open spots so they can hit different spots because the block doesn’t know where I’m gonna set it.”
“The thing that I think I’m the most proud of tonight was honestly our serving,” Head Coach Candace Kleespies says. “That has been a part of our game all year that has just been so up and down. We honestly took a lot of pace off of some girls’ balls these last couple of weeks. We’ve been trying to work more placement and set a pace so that we could really bring our service errors down. Because our aces weren’t matching our service errors. And so tonight I felt like they did a tremendous job of just finding placement with their serve and keeping the ball in. And because of that, we had quite a few aces tonight and maybe a handful of missed serves, but I’ll take that when we’re serving a little more aggressive.”
Jenzen Klooster had 10 kills and Kolbie Wangsness had five aces.
With one win separating the Falcons from a third straight state tournament appearance, they’ll take on #7 (2A) Riverside in Wednesday’s regional final at Van Meter.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1OosR1_ZPI?si=O1DjtDDmYMYfyNh-&w=560&h=315]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcmxu5tcqpA?si=4nAAuPiYl-6x8zUD&w=560&h=315]
