Volleyball: Looking to finish out strong

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This is the portion of the season where Rosemount volleyball coach Kristin Helgeson thought things would turn around for her team.

Getting through the toughest portion of possibly the toughest conference in the state offered a bit of a breather.

What little breath the Lake Conference allows, that is.

Now, the Irish are just trying to gain momentum before the playoffs begin Oct. 21.

“We have the potential to upset teams down the stretch,” Helgeson said. “When all of the units are firing at once, when everyone plays well, we can play with teams. I hope things start happening soon.

“With our conference, all the matches are hard. If you’re trying to get a team to start clicking, it’s not the easiest conference to do that. It’s just so hard to get on a roll.”

At this point, Helgeson believes just getting out and playing might be the best thing for her team.

Instead of the normal two matches per week schedule, the Irish had six matches over an eight-day period.

“I think that it helped, it was nice to play all those games,” Helgeson said. “The attitude of the girls is great. Our work ethic is very, very positive. They are working hard. We’re just not able to pull off wins. It’s kind of been a weird year.”

The Irish lost a tough 25-17, 25-19, 23-25, 25-17 match at Lakeville South. They came back a day later to play in the Burnsville tournament, placing sixth out of nine teams.

In the opener, Rosemount lost 25-9, 15-25, and 15-9 to Andover, a state tournament team last year. In the second game, the Irish beat Hutchinson 25-21 and 26-24.

On Saturday it was a 25-23 and 25-20 loss to Southwest Christian. The Irish then faced Farmington for the second time this season and lost, 25-18 and 25-14.

Tuesday, Rosemount went to Bloomington Jefferson and lost a tough 25-22, 22-25, 25-14, and 25-17 decision.

“We didn’t play well at the beginning of games,” Helgeson said. “We started slow and then had to catch up. Other times we couldn’t catch up.”

Against Jefferson, Paige Carter had a team-high 15 kills. Paige Peterson had 14 kills.

Zoe Peterson had three services aces, and helped pull out game two by serving 10 straight points. Laura Budinger added 14 digs.

Tags: sports, volleyball, girls