By Kaylee Karr
On Thursday, September 26, the Lady Mustangs faced off against the Raiders in a match at home. To start the first game, the Mustangs won the first set closely 25-22. Senior Emma Schmidt earned 5 aces for the night, providing the Mustangs with some momentum. Also during the first set, junior Sophie Schmidt achieved a major milestone of 1000 serve receptions throughout her career. The second and third sets were also close, but the Raiders managed to take the second set 22-25 and the third set 19-25. However, the Mustangs weren’t going to give up yet and pulled through to win the fourth set 25-21. A huge contribution to the Mustang’s offense came from junior MaKenna Karr who led the team with 17 kills. Freshman Libby Soucek added 9 as well. The Mustangs fought hard and managed to keep the set close, but the Raiders ended up winning set five 14-16. Sophie Schmidt picked up 36 of the team’s 92 digs for the match. Commenting on the loss, head coach Shelby Rupprecht said, “I was super proud of how much effort the girls put into this game. I think we’re growing with every game we play. I asked for them to play at a high level with a lot of energy and that’s exactly what they did.”
About the goals and expectations for the rest of the season, Shelby Rupprecht also commented, “Moving forward, we just need to take a deep breath and diminish the mental errors. We had 17 missed serves, and that really hurt us in a five-set game. I believe in these girls and I believe they want to win badly enough to keep putting in the work to do so. It’s tough to keep battling after some really tough losses, but I feel like they always respond and work to improve on the things I ask of them.”