Hailey Havera was honored for 1000 career assists.
Vicksburg’s varsity volleyball team wrapped up its season with a 30-15-1 record through an especially challenging schedule. It’s the best record the team has had in five years.
The girls appear to be hitting their stride as the regular season finished. It is exactly how Head Coach Jennifer Buikema envisioned it.
“We always start our season knowing we want to play our best volleyball at the end of the season and we are, so we’re ready,” Buikema said.
The Bulldogs went on the road against Paw Paw and swept the rebuilding Red Wolves in three straight sets. Vicksburg took an early 8-1 lead in the first set and never relinquished it. Jenna Schramer and Livia Kline accounted for three aces before the score even hit ten points.
“We obviously work on serving all season, but we’ve been working on more aggressive serving,” Buikema said.
It didn’t seem to matter who was serving the ball for Vicksburg. The points kept coming. Addison Naplin, Lena Lancaster, and Brynn Swetz all served up a steady supply of aces. Another noticeable improvement is in the front of the net. The Bulldogs put on a blocking clinic against Paw Paw. The Red Wolves had a hard time setting up kills. Sets one and three both ended on block kills. Vicksburg won the three sets by scores of 25-10, 25-13, and 25-18.
“Our blocking has really picked up in the last couple of weeks,” Buikema said. “Our timing has been a lot more on. We’ve been reading the hitters a lot better, and that’s allowed us to get more touches and block kills.”
This strategy has shown up in the team’s season statistics. Hailey Havera earned 1,000 assists earlier in the season and is on pace to possibly reach 2,000. Schramer has been a key in defense, managing 1,000 digs. Buikema expects Addison Naplin will likely reach 1,000 kills. Swetz earned her 500th career kill recently.
“We’ve had some pretty big stats this season from all of our hitters,” Buikema said.
Paw Paw has had a rough year, but Buikema noted the team didn’t want to overlook them in the road matchup.
“We knew that they were sitting at the bottom of the Conference and we still need to respect them,” she said. “They have good players; they have good athletes. We needed to make sure we still played intentional and we did that.”
District play should be interesting for Vicksburg this year. Buikema said it’s likely Harper Creek will be the top seed and the team to beat. However, Vicksburg and Three Rivers are only a couple hundredths of a point away in the rankings. The good news is that the Bulldogs will have a homefield advantage while hosting the tournament.
“It’s going to be a close District, but I guess if they (Harper Creek) are going to be the number one seed, they will be the team to beat,” Buikema said.
