September 25, 2024

VOLLEYBALL: NV girls bonding well during recent action

By Ryan Stonebraker
Nodaway Valley's Adelaide Livingston sets the ball for a teammate in the Wolverines' recent home triangular against Martensdale-St. Marys and East Union.

Nodaway Valley's Adelaide Livingston sets the ball for a teammate in the Wolverines' recent home triangular against Martensdale-St. Marys and East Union. (Caleb Nelson)

Nodaway Valley volleyball had quite a busy week last week with a pair of triangular match nights and four matches played.

The Wolverines hosted the first of two Pride of Iowa Conference triangular nights when East Union and Martensdale-St. Marys came to town Tuesday, Sept. 17. Two nights later, the Wolverines were in Earlham for a triangular meet with Lenox and Earlham.

Nodaway Valley played Martensdale-St. Marys and East Union at home on September 17. The Wolverines fell 2-0 to both POI foes to fall to 0-2 in the POI. Scores for the MStM match were 25-15 and 25-17. Scores for the other match were unavailable.

On Thursday, Nodaway Valley lost to both Lenox and Earlham. The Wolverines lost to Lenox 2-0 by scores of 25-12 and 25-16. The Wolverines lost to Earlham by scores of 25-9 and 25-9. The Wolverines’ record fell to 0-18 overall with the four losses last week.

Through matches with statistics entered online, Nodaway Valley has 291 attacks and 60 kills from those attacks. Izzy Eisbach has a team-high 97 attacks with 24 kills while Taylor Laughery is next with 63 attacks and 14 kills. Kylie Nelson is a third Wolverine with double-digit kills with 11 in 47 attacks. Adelaide Livingston had a team-high 43 assists while Bailey Carstens had 19. Defensively, NV is led in digs by Liv Laughery, who has 45. The Wolverines, as a team, have served 282-for-328 with 38 aces. Taylor Laughery leads NV in serving, going 61-for-69 with 10 aces while Liv Laughery is 51-for-59 with six aces.

Nodaway Valley head coach McKynli Newbury said that though the team is still looking for their first win, she feels that the team has bonded well.

“Over the last three weeks, I think that we have bonded well. We have grown together and we played our best matches down in Lenox recently,” she said. “We are interested in seeing the matchups coming up in the POI. As a whole, the conference lost a lot of seniors last year and there are other teams in the same boat as us. We will have some matches coming up that we are confident we can compete in. We want to keep getting better with each match.”

Nodaway Valley graduated five seniors from last year including all three senior captains.

Wolverines get three matches at Perry Tournament

The Nodaway Valley Wolverines played three matches at the annual Perry volleyball tournament Saturday, Sept. 12. NV played Earlham, South Hamilton and Des Moines East. All three matches were losses in non-conference play.

The Wolverines lost 2-0 to Earlham by scores of 21-18 and 21-17. The Wolverines lost to South Hamilton by scores of 21-9 and 21-15. The Wolverines lost to Des Moines East by scores of 21-16 and 21-19.

The Wolverines played at Corning Tuesday, Sept. 25 against Central Decatur and Southwest Valley in another POI triangular. The Wolverines will be back on the court Tuesday, Oct. 1 at home when Mount Ayr and Southeast Warren are in town for Senior Night.