Huron volleyball makes good showing at Mt. Morris

A long drive paid off with a strong finish for the Huron volleyball team Saturday. Rogers City finished third in the 10-team Mt. Morris Invitational, playing teams from larger schools very well, according to coach Mary Fairbanks. ?We placed second in our pool with a loss to Port Huron Northern in our last match of the pool. We both had a 5-1 record going in to that last match. We then played Lake Fenton (the third place team from the other pool) and took them to three games,? she said.

The Hurons topped Valley Christian (21-5, 21-15), split with All Saints Central (13-21, 21-16), and defeated Mt. Morris (21-16, 21-18) before losing two games to Port Huron Northern (14-21, 14-21). That sent the Hurons into bracket play, where they defeated Lake Fenton (15-21, 21-10, 15-12) and lost to Holly. ?We lost in the semi-finals to a strong Class A Holly team. Overall, the team played well against some good competition,? Fairbanks said.

SEVERAL HURONS had great statistics for the day. Dana Fairbanks led the team with 28 kills, adding five blocks, three aces, 20 digs and six assists. Moni Cercone was second in kills with 18, adding 11 digs and two aces. Jenny Fleming led the team with eight ace serves and she added 14 kills, five blocks, and 26 digs. Elly Plath had 36 assists and eight ace serves while Lauren Hanson had 30 digs. Simone Kapala had nine kills, five blocks, four aces, and 15 digs.

MONDAY THE Hurons took an exciting and close match at Alpena (17-25, 25-20, 17-25, 25-23, 15-10). ?We played an exciting five-game match on the Wildcat home court and were able to come away with a win. Alpena hit and blocked well in the middle that shut down some of our offense,? coach Fairbanks said. The back-and-forth match came d

own to the last game as the Hurons figured out how to stop the Wildcats. ?Our defense finally took hold and we were able to run our offense in the fourth game. The momentum of that win carried into the deciding game where we came out strong, getting a 9-3 advantage in the third service rotation,? she said. Dana Fairbanks led the team with 13 kills and 18 digs. Plath had 13 assists, seven digs and three aces. Fleming led the team with six aces, while adding 13 digs, five kills, and three blocks. The Hurons (12-11-2 overall, 0-1 SAC) play at Mt. Pleasant Saturday and their next home match is Monday with Newberry.

THE HURON JV team played in the Alpena JV Invitational, going undefeated until the last match of pool play. RC defeated Traverse City (25-17, 25-19), Onaway (25-4, 25-19) and Alpena B squad (25-20, 25-12). Undefeated Roscommon topped the Hurons in the last round of pool play. Escanaba defeated the Hurons in bracket play (19-25, 13-25) and the Eskimos went on to defeat Alpena in the finals. Leading the team for the day was Allie Gilmet with 20 aces and Anna Wickersham with seven kills.