BY WENDI REARDON PRICE
Clarkston News Sports Writer
Spikers dove into a busy week, coming out with wins, losses and learning a lot against tough competition.
Clarkston Varsity Volleyball opened the week at the Oxford Quad, Aug. 24, going 2-1.
They won their first game against Lake Orion in two sets, 25-16 and 25-19. Junior Paige Giehtbrock had eight kills and six digs. Freshman Addison Newblatt had six kills and six digs. Senior Elizabeth Adams had five kills. Senior Summer Jidas had ten digs and sophomore Emery Kuebler had ten assists.
“I thought we could have played with a little more consistency throughout the night. But, we had a ton of energy and executed very well against Lake Orion,” said Ali Smith, head coach. “Then, hit a little low against Notre Dame Prep.”
They lost to Notre Dame Prep in two sets, 25-16, 25-20. Adams had five kills, Giehtbrock had four kills and seven digs, Jidas had five digs and Kuebler had 11 assists.
“We lost to a really solid Notre Dame Prep team,” Smith added.
The Wolves finished the night beating Oxford in two sets, 25-19 and 25-17. Giehtbrock had nine kills and five digs. Newblatt and sophomore Cayla Cogan had six kills. Jidas and sophomore Kiley Gallagher had six digs each. Kuebler had ten assists.
“We were able to recover, come back and beat Oxford at the end,” Smith said, adding it was a good recovery. “We are still working on being more consistent.”
Clarkston went 1-2 at the Rockford Quad on Thursday.
“We started off strong,” said Smith. “Rockford and Marian were really great competition. We walked away from that quad and we learned a lot about ourselves.”
She added it helped seeing the tough competition early in the year.
“It gives us a really good gauge of where we are at and things we need to work on to compete with the top teams in the state,” Smith said.
They won their game against Byron Center, 25-21 and 25-22. Adams had nine kills. Giehtbrock had seven kills and five digs. Jidas had eight digs. Gallagher had five digs and Kuebler had 15 assists.
They lost to Rockford in three sets. They lost the first set, 25-20, and the third set, 15-7. The Wolves took the second set, 25-20. Cogan and Adams had four kills each. Kuebler had four aces and 14 assists and Jidas had ten digs.
They lost to Marian, 25-13 and 25-13. Giehtbrock had three kills. Adams had three blocks. Junior Monti Rotter, Jidas and Newblatt had three digs each. Kuebler had six assists.
Smith added Adams and Jidas had a good week.
“Summer, our libero, is really consistent night in and night out,” she said. “She had another great week which I anticipate her having all the time. Eli also had a great week. She had started the season as a middle and we’ve got her on the right side now and defensively she is helping a ton with her size and physicality over there.”
The Wolves went 3-0 in their first Power Series competition on Saturday.
They defeated Fraser in two sets, 25-9 and 25-18. Paige Giehtbrock had nine kills and four aces. Cogan had seven kills andAdams had five kills. Kuebler had 15 assists.
They won their games against Brighton and Birmingham Groves.
“It gets reshuffled each week,” said Smith. It’s great. It will get even more competitive. It was a long week. We were happy of where we came out on Saturday after two really competitive dates.”
The team has this week off as they prepare for their quad on Tuesday, Sept. 7 and the Oxford Tournament on Saturday, Sept. 11.
“We’ve got some tired legs even though we were playing deep into our bench,” said Smith. “After doing two-a-days and a pretty intense preseason this week is much needed.”