Lady Vikings sweep third opponent in a row


Kya Blake, 6 kills and 3 aces

The Siuslaw Vikings volleyball team improved to 3-1 on the season Thursday with a 3-0 victory over the 3A Billies at Pleasant Hill.

The Lady Vikings won 25-23, 25-21, 25-10 for their third sweep in a row. Pleasant Hill fell to 1-2.

Senior outside hitter Mia Collins had 9 kills, 9 digs and 2 aces and junior outside hitter Kya Blake 6 kills and 3 aces.

Freshman middle blocker Desi Tupua had 4 kills, 3 aces and a block, sophomore libero Hayden Muller 11 digs and sophomore setter Zoe Alberty 2 of the team's 5 blocks.

"We looked great at times, especially in transition when Zoe is feeding Mia quick sets to the outside," Vikings coach Jon Hornung said, "but there are still things that we need to clean up.

"Our serve receive of Mia, Hayden and Lindsey (Long) was stellar and we scrambled really well during out of system plays.

"We've made a point this week to clean up our serving, and we did great this match, only missing four serves.

"We've also been working really hard on defensive positioning and being able to adjust on the fly, and the second and third sets really showed how strong our defense can be if we adjust to the opposing players.

"We still need to work on getting double blocks up on every outside set and making sure we don't give away points trying to do too much at the net."

The Lady Vikings struggled early, got their footing in the second set and dominated the third behind the serving of Blake and Tupua.

"We started off on weird footing and struggled to string together points in the first game," Hornung said. "They're a solid team that didn't give away a lot of points.

"We would have a great swing that they would dig and force you to take swing after swing to try to win points. In an opposing gym those points start to wear down mentally.

"We played well enough to finish out the set 25-23. We had a lot of uncharacteristic hitting errors and defensive errors, but we cleaned them up in the second set and took a big lead with Desi Tupua serving. She was able to stretch the lead to 20-12 and we cruised from there to a 25-21 win.

"The third set started very similar to the first and we made a couple hitting errors and a setting error and before we knew it we had dug ourselves into a small hole of 0-4.

"From there Mia took over and we used serving runs from both Kya Blake and Desi Tupua to stretch out a comfortable lead of 16-6, and we ran away with the set 25-10."

Siuslaw hosts Sutherlin at 6:30 p.m. next Thursday, Sept. 12, at Glenn Butler Court.

The Lady Vikings open their Sky-Em League season Thursday, Sept. 19, at Cottage Grove.

NOTES

Junction City is 4-0 and currently ranked No. 2 in preleague, Marshfield 3-0 and No. 17, Siuslaw 3-1 and No. 13, Elmira 2-0 and No. 10, Cottage Grove 0-1 and No. 15 and Marist Catholic 0-1 and No. 28. …

SKY-EM LEAGUE
Thursday's results
Siuslaw 3, at Pleasant Hill 0 (25-23, 25-21, 25-10)
Junction City 3, at Woodburn 0 (25-9, 25-15, 25-14)
at Elmira 3, Gladstone 1 (25-14, 25-18, 22-25, 25-11)
Sisters 3, at Marist Catholic 0 (25-14, 25-21, 25-12)
at Marshfield 3, Phoenix 0 (25-6, 25-16, 27-25)
at Marshfield 3, Reedsport 0 (25-18, 25-19, 25-23)
at Philomath 3, Cottage Grove 0 (25-15, 25-19, 25-21)

2019 SIUSLAW SCHEDULE
Record:
3-1 overall, 0-0 Sky-Em League, 3-1 nonleague
Nonleague
Thursday, Aug. 29 — at North Bend 3, Siuslaw 2 (16-25, 25-18, 19-25, 25-19, 15-13)
Friday, Aug. 30 — Siuslaw 3, Bandon 0 (25-15, 25-12, 25-10)
Friday, Aug. 30 — Siuslaw 3, Douglas 0 (25-20, 25-14, 25-11)
Thursday, Sept. 5 — Siuslaw 3, at Pleasant Hill 0 (25-23, 25-21, 25-10)
Thursday, Sept. 12 — Sutherlin, 6:30 p.m.
Saturday, Sept. 21 — at Sisters Tournament
Saturday, Oct. 5 — at Junction City Tournament
Saturday, Oct. 19 — at Marshfield Tournament
Sky-Em League
Thursday, Sept. 19 — at Cottage Grove, 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Sept. 24 — Marist Catholic, 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, Sept. 26 — at Marshfield, 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 1 — Elmira, 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 3 — at Junction City, 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 8 — Cottage Grove, 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 10 — at Marist Catholic, 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 15 — Marshfield, 6:30 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 17 — at Elmira, 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 22 — Junction City, 6:30 p.m.

2019 SIUSLAW VARSITY ROSTER

  1 Lindsey Long, 5-2 junior, defensive specialist
  2 Hayden Muller, 5-2 sophomore, libero
  3 Hailee Outlaw, 5-8 freshman, setter
  5 Mia Collins, 6-0 senior, outside hitter
  6 Desi Tupua, 5-8 freshman, middle blocker
  7 Delaney Foglio, 5-8 junior, middle blocker
  9 Zoe Alberty, 5-7 sophomore, setter
10 Elissa Hurley, 5-8 senior, right side
11 Kya Blake, 5-9 junior, outside hitter