By Savanna Junek
The Silver Lake Mustang volleyball team had their first tournament of the season at
Axtell. Their first game was against Neligh-Oakdale. The Lady Mustangs beat the
Neligh-Oakdale Warriors in the first set with a score of 25-21. Unfortunately in the second set,
the Mustangs fell behind and lost 17-25 but they came back and won the last set with a score of
25-22. Silver Lake came through with a great win and amazing stats. Leading the team
offensively, senior Sydney Bartels had 7 kills. With 5 kills each, juniors Emma Schmidt and Katy
Soucek and sophomore Makenna Karr contributed to the team’s overall amount of 27 kills. Senior
Morgan Dinkler also led offensively with 15 assists. Defensive leaders for the team were
Makenna Karr and sophomore Sophie Schmidt with 14 digs and 17 digs.
The second game for the Lady Mustangs was against the Lawrence-Nelson Raiders. The
Mustangs started off strong in the first set and won with a score of 25-23. Unfortunately, they fell
behind in the second and third sets with scores of 24-26 and 21-25. Soucek led the team
offensively with 8 kills. Senior Madison Karr, Bartels, and Makenna Karr each got 5 kills. With
With 23 digs and 15 serve receptions, Sophie Schmidt dominated defensively. “As a libero, my main
responsibility is to pass the ball well so the team can properly run the offense and potentially get
a kill. I truly have the desire each game to win and I have confidence in myself and in my team
to do so,” explained Sophie Schmidt.
Silver Lake went up against Alma for their last game for third place. The Mustangs won
the first and second sets with scores of 25-23 and 25-19. This allowed them to achieve third
place in the Axtell tournament. Leading the team offensively, junior Macy Parr was aggressive
with 6 kills. Sophie Schmidt continued to fight on defense with 9 digs and 17 serve receptions.
The team had a total of 44 digs and 37 serve receptions. Dinkler explained, “The team did a great job of pushing through to win and accomplish third place in the tournament. After losing to
Lawrence-Nelson, the whole team had to focus on the Alma game and flush the previous game.
Even though we lost to Lawrence Nelson, we can use that game as a learning experience for the
next game against them.”