Rangers rally for a volleyball win on the road

The Rangers Volleyball team is back to a .500 record after a big win on the road against the Douglas High School Patriots Tuesday. 

The Rangers came out strong, scoring 15 of the first 16 points of the first set and finishing 25-6. 

Hill City kept the momentum through the rest of the game, sweeping the Patriots with a 25-16 score in the next two sets. 

The team’s strong serving, improved coverage and increased confidence in the new rotation were key factors for bringing home the win. 

“We served really strong, and I think our coverage was really good. We’ve been working a lot on improving coverage and transitioning,” said head coach Allie Henderson. “That was definitely a positive for the whole team.”

Three Rangers achieved a perfect serving percentage for the game: Grace Peckosh with 10 attempts, Lillie Ham with six and Zulema Lupericia with four. Demi Schrier served 22 from the line with only two errors.

“We got to use a lot of hitters. I think that was what was so cool,” said Henderson. “We were kind of spread out across everyone.” 

Knocking down the kills for the Rangers was  Peckosh (nine), Ham (seven), Demi Schrier and Aly Isakson each with five.

The back row, “were really just able to produce some really good balls for our centers so that we could just set up kind of perfect situations for hitting. That’s kind of the combination of everyone just doing their job that really got us there,” said Henderson. “We used the same rotation at Spearfish. The rotation that we had used, it was kind of new, and we were taking a risk but just wanting to be brave and try it. We practiced a lot more in this rotation, and I think they finally were a lot more comfortable, and we were able to really pull together a rotation that’s kind of unusual. But I think once we get it, it’s going to be really good.

“We’re finally clicking and firing on all cylinders,” 

The Rangers had a big weekend of play at Monument Summit Arena for the Rapid City Volleyball Tournament with their first game agains Stevens High School Raiders. 

“We’re going to have a pretty tough game coming out of the gate,” said Henderson. “It just has to come down to who’s going to be mentally tougher and want it more.”

“Overall, I’m really proud of the way we played this weekend,” said Henderson. “Some of our poorest performances have been at The Monument. Three of our four total losses (with the other being SoDak 16) for the entire season last year came from The Monument tournament so we were determined to break that curse.”

The Rangers went 50 percent for the weekend, notching wins against Hot Springs and Lakota Tech with their two losses to Rapid City Stevens, a Class AA school, and Dakota Valley, last year’s State A runner up. 

“It was nice to see that we could stick with the current number one ranked (by seed points) team in the state. We forced them to tip quite a lot after they saw the kind of blocks we were throwing up. To have a team like that, that has some of the fastest swings in the state, have to change their game because they’re afraid of our block and back rows ability to get a ball up is a big accomplishment,” said Henderson. “We’re getting post season experience right now, and that’s just going to help us mentally and physically be more prepared when that time does come.”

“The biggest take-away is that we aren’t laying down to anyone. We’re getting better every game,” Henderson said.

The Rangers traveled to Hot Springs Tuesday to rumble with the Bison. Results of the game were not yet available at the time of publication.