By Chad Koenen

Publisher

The New York Mills Eagles hosted one of the top teams in Section 8AA on Tuesday night in a match that was much closer than the 3-1 final score. The Frazee Hornets, who advanced to the semi-finals in Section 8AA last season, trailed for a good part of the opening set, before coming away with a 25-22 win. 

The Hornets were able to control the tempo in the second set to come away with a 25-11 win, but were unable to come away with the sweep as the Eagles flipped the script to secure an inspired 25-16 win to force a fourth set.

Unfortunately, Frazee was able to secure a 25-18 win in the fourth set to hand the Eagles a 3-1 loss in their regular season and home opener on Tuesday night. 

New head coach Steve Dunrud said the Eagles have some work to do with their set receives, but was pleased with how the team came out to play in their first game of the season. 

“We’re really pleased with our first match. Great atmosphere to play in. Give Frazee a lot of credit as they made it tough to get in-system with our offense, but we hung in there and played some inspired volleyball,” he said. “We’ve got some work to do with our serve receive, but the girls made the most of the good passes that we delivered.”

The Eagles were led offensively by a balanced scoring attack with Ellyana Ruther leading the charge with nine kills, while Alivia Preuss finished with eight kills and Chloe Costin finished with six kills. Ruther and Aubree Salo each finished with a team-high 14 digs, while Julie Seim and Talli Schmitz led the way with 11 and 10 assists respectively.

Dunrud said one of the highlights of the night was how well the Eagles served. The team finished with four aces, but as a group

served 94 percent with just five missed serves in the contest,

“Serving was a strength for us tonight. We also made some awesome hustle plays throughout the match. We can certainly build on the positives that we saw tonight. This is just one step in becoming the type of team that we’d like to become,” he said.

This week the Eagles will host Brandon-Evansville on Tuesday night in non-conference action, before traveling to perennial power Wadena-Deer Creek on Thursday in their Park Region Conference opener. 

On Saturday the Eagles will wrap up a busy slate of games at the Browerville Tournament.

ASSISTS- Talli Schmitz 10, Julie Seim 11, Aria VanOrsdel 3

KILLS- Chloe Costin 6, Alivia Preuss 8, Ellyana Ruther 9, Aria VanOrsdel 2, Channing Frost 1

DIGS- Talli Schmitz 8, Alise Schornack 4, Julie Seim 3, Alivia Preuss 2, Aubree Salo 14, Ellyana Ruther 14, Emilia Maunumaki 3, Esne Lien 1, Channing Frost 2

BLOCKS- Chloe Costin 1, Alivia Preuss 3, Ellyana Ruther 1

SERVES- Talli Schmitz 5-5, Alise Schornack 19-20 (1 ace), Chloe Costin 10-10 (1 ace), Julie Seim 11-12, Alivia Preuss 2-3, Aubree Salo 11-12 (1 ace), Ellyana Ruther 7-7, Emilia Maunumaki 1-1, Channing Frost 7-7 (1 ace)