Royal raises up on Warden

Knights sharp, Cougars tentative in three game match

The Royal Knights had the Warden Cougars on their heels all night.

Royal's aggressive play added to Warden's mistakes equaled a three-game Knight's win in 1A girls league volleyball action in Royal City Thursday night.

"We practice to be aggressive," said Royal head coach Paul Olsufka. "That third one wants to be a hit."

Most times, it was.

After falling behind 0-2 in the first game, Royal took advantage of Warden mistakes to build a 10-6 lead before pulling away against a Cougar team that played soft most of the match.

The Knights dominated the second game, thanks Ashley Baker and Mackenzee Brown passes that set up kills nearly every point. Baker and Brown finished with 12 and seven points, respectively.

"They covered the floor and did what they had to do," Olsufka said. "They passed the ball well tonight."

Warden was only able to string together consecutive scores twice, once when the game was all but over.

"We gave away too many free balls and let them have too many hits," said Warden head coach David Vega. "We need to be able to put the other team on the defensive with our attack. What we are doing instead is giving them easy balls and let them have as many chances as they want."

Warden stormed out of the gate in the third game, building a 7-1 lead. But Royal regrouped and chipped away at the Cougar lead. A Shaina Allred block gave Royal a 16-15 edge, and a lead they would not relinquish. Warden fought to come back, but two long Royal rallies ended the game and the match, 20-25.

"They showed a lot of poise coming back in that third game after getting down," Olsufka said of Royal's play. "I thought Joell Herrud did well for us in the back. Sarah Anderson did good on her hits. Net play by Allred was good — it was a team effort tonight all the way around. I don't know if I could single any one person out."

Warden's Vega hoped for more than he got from his team, which fell to 1-1 in league, 2-3 overall.

"That's bad side of our team," he said. "We showed that we can be decent on Tuesday (versus Wahluke), but this is why we are not a good team yet. A good team would come out every time and give them a better game — play with more desire, intensity."

Olsufka said he got the performance he wanted from the Lady Knights, who improves to 2-0 in league, 6-0 overall.

"We expect to do this," he said. "We set a goal that we wanted to make it back to state and bring home some hardware. We're working hard to do that. If we do the fundamentals, I think it will take us a long way."4420OhmC3Sumroyal warden vball 10/1

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