The Mitchell High School volleyball team ran into another buzzsaw on Thursday.
The Kernels, coming off a 3-0 sweep against No. 1 Sioux Falls O’Gorman on Oct. 1, faced No. 3 Aberdeen Central in an Eastern South Dakota Conference match at MHS gym.
And just like against the Knights, Mitchell was swept in straight sets and fell to 2-7 on the season. The set scores were 25-23, 25-15 and 25-18.
“They’ve got some experience back obviously,” Mitchell coach Deb Thill said about the Golden Eagles. “They’ve got a very good offensive team. … They are just very sound fundamentally and we knew that they had a lot of kids coming back.”
The Kernels fell behind in each of the three sets, but staged a huge rally in the first set. The Golden Eagles stretched their lead to seven points (23-17), but the Kernels put together a comeback. Mitchell strung together six straight points, punctuated by a block to make it 23-22. But the Kernels couldn’t tie or take the lead and Aberdeen Central’s Grace Kuch put down the final kill for a 1-0 match lead.
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“In all three sets, we got down and we battled back to a certain point,” Thill said. “I know in set one we battled back to a really good point that we had chances. I think that’s all you can ask of your team.”
The Kernels, however, couldn’t keep up the momentum and the Golden Eagles (8-2) bolted out to big leads in the next two sets.
But Thill still praised Mitchell’s effort.
“I thought our kids battled,” Thill added. “I thought we battled really well and the serve and serve-receive game was even between us. We just have too many hitting errors and blocking errors.”
Kaspen Alm and Cameryn Logan finished with eight kills apiece. Lizzie Tyler added six kills and nine digs. Sarah Sebert chipped in with 18 digs, while Katy Sebert added 11 digs and 20 assists.
The Kernels host Sturgis on Saturday at 5 p.m. at MHS gym.
