This past Sunday, the ladies of H2 IL West 14’s traveled to Belleville West High School for the War at West. The girls started off hot with an overpowering service game taking out Route 3 14’s in two quick sets. After taking that strong service game to Mineral Area 14’s winning the first set easily, our serve receive game took a break in the second. Going down 12-1 out the gate turned out to be too much to overcome leading to a split with Mineral Area. The final match of the Pool Play was against a tough Top Notch 14’s. The girls rebounded from their serve receive issues but couldn’t overcome the depth of their opponent going down in two sets. This led the girls into the Silver Bracket play. Facing a feisty Voltage 14’s team, the ladies of H2 used smart hitting, a fast transitional game along with timely service runs from Meredith Heuring and Rylee Sudholt to take the match in two. This set the ladies of IL West against geographical rival RC Flyers 14’s. The yips of serve receive revisited late in the first set with the girls going down 15-12. This was until lefty Megan Vidmar came to the serving line. Her low top spin serve catapulted the team to an 18-16 lead including three aces and the girls never looked back taking the first set 19-17 and easily winning the second set taking 1st Place in Silver.

Outside hitter Megan Schleifer lead the offensive attack on the day with 12 serving aces and eight kills. Outside hitter Asia Jansen was on her tail with 11 kills along with setter Rylee Sudholt tallying 11 service aces. Middles Payton Hogue and Abby Johnson both contributed six kills each. These girls have come so far this year, but the mission isn’t complete. We still have to attain that Gold Medal next to our two Silver medals! We started another week of intense practices to prepare for our third 15’s division tournament this season on Saturday at the new Lamborghini Centre. We are the only 14’s division team entered, pinning the girls against some talented 15’s teams. Tori and I are fully confident the athletes of 14 IL West will accept and rise to the challenge!

Way to go ladies!