RAPID CITY – It was business as usual for Warner during the opening round of the State B Volleyball Tournament Thursday night. The Monarchs, who have played in the last five state championship matches, are now one step away from making it six in a row.
Warner put away Harding County 25-16, 25-15, 25-13 at The Monument after a pair of tough postseason wins over Hitchcock-Tulare and Colman-Egan to advance to the tourney.
“We knew it was gonna be a tough match, but the previous two matches we had really helped us and settled us down. And play without so many nerves,” said Warner coach Kari Jung. “A lot of these girls haven’t been on the court with us, and I could tell they were nervous before we came, so I’m really proud of them and that we can play at night (Friday).”
Harding County came into the match with a decorated resume losing just three matches on the year. Warner game planned for the Ranchers all week, drilling their habits in practice.
“We talked about them a lot. We prepared and did stuff like they did stuff. So, we did it in drills,” said Warner freshman Miah Leidholt. “We did a lot of serve, serve receive. We do that every day.”
That practice paid off as the Monarchs had few serve receive errors and racked up eight aces on the night. Even then they weren’t recording aces, Warner was able to serve the Ranchers out of system.
“We did keep them out a little bit and that helps,” Jung said. “We had a few more errors tonight than we did in the previous match, but I still thought we served pretty darn good.”
Leidholt led the way from the service line with four aces. She credited her coaches for her serving proficiency.
“Serving’s a really important role in the game. It’s good, you can get easy points,” Leidholt said. “(Coach Jung) was giving me zones. I think we knew our weak passers over there, so our coaches helped us a lot for serving, for sure.
The Monarchs jumped out to an early lead to start the match, scoring the first four points and opened a 12-7 lead forcing a Harding County timeout.
A total of five different Warner players had a kill in the opening dozen points.
“We feel that our balance is what has helped us get here,” Jung said. “And so, if someone’s off, then it really does help to have balance, because hopefully someone else can find a kill.”
Miah Leidholt and Jaycee Jung finished with four kills each in the opening set. Courtney Leidholt and MaKenna Leidholt added three kills each, followed by a pair of kills from Kaydee Mackner.
The Monarchs set the tone in the first set and rode the momentum the rest of match.
“I feel like it just gives us so much more momentum. Like everybody’s hyped,” Miah Leidholt said. “We have so much more energy and it just feels great.”
After winning the first two sets by a combined 19 points, the Monarchs did not take anything for granted in the final set and were able to finish off the sweep.
“I think we have to keep our focus definitely during the game,” Leidholt said. “We know we cannot, like even if we’re up by a lot, we still have to keep our focus and make sure we don’t get down.”
Harding County exhausted all six of its timeouts during the match, while Warner didn’t use one. Jung used each timeout to rally the girls around a common goal.
“We just said we ought to keep our focus,” Jung said. “We wanna go in a little more rested (Friday), so let’s try to finish this in three.”
Warner now takes on longtime rival Northwestern in the semifinals at around 6:45 (MST) tonight. The Wildcats won a previous matchup in four sets.
The Monarchs held Harding County to just 13 totals kills, but know that Northwestern has a higher-powered offense.
“Northwestern runs a faster offense. They have more experience on the court,” said Jung. “They got a really solid hitter out of (Ashley) Haven, so we’ll have to stop her.”
Serving: Harding County 1 ace (Kaydence Gilbert 1 ace); Warner 8 aces (Miah Leidholt 4 aces, Tatum Hanson 2 aces, Reagan Wood 2 aces).
Hitting: Harding County 13 kills (Kamry Padden 5 kills, Gilbert 3 kills, Mya Glines 2 kills); Warner 44 kills (MaKenna Leidholt 11 kills, Jaycee Jung 10 kills, Kaydee Mackner 7 kills).
Setting: Harding County 11 assists (Glines 7 assists, Padden 3 assists); Warner 39 assists (Wood 20 assists, Hanson 12 assists).
Digs: Harding County 45 (Macey Wendt 11, Lexy Rolph 10, Kajsa Brown 8); Warner 69 (Jung 14, Keira Steger 10, Brynn Hill 9).
Blocks: Harding County 1 (Padden 1 assisted, Wendt 1 assisted); Warner 3.5 (MaKenna Leidholt 2 assisted, Olivia Marcuson 2 assisted, Jung 2 assisted).
Records: Harding County 28-4; Warner 32-6.
