Henning improves to 14-3 overall, 3-0 in PR Conference

The Henning Hornets volleyball team improved their overall record to 14-3 and their Park Region Conference record to 3-0 with their games they played last week.

The Hornets defeated Brandon-Evansville 3-0, Verndale 3-2, and brought home the championship in the Parkers Prairie Tournament, where they went 4-1 on the day. The Hornets split with all teams in their pool, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle (25-12, 24-26), Menahga (25-18, 22-25) and Park Christian (18-25, 17-25). 

With the morning pool play results, the Hornets were seated second in their pool, so that put Henning in the Gold Bracket Tournament. In their first match Henning played the top team from the other pool, Browerville. The Hornets defeated Browerville 2-0 (26-24, 25-20). 

Henning then faced West Central, as they defeated Park Christian 2-1. In the match against West Central the Hornets fought hard and played as a team and defeated the Knights 2-0 (25-19, 25-20). It was definitely a long day of volleyball, but well worth it, as Henning improved as a team the whole day. 

Head coach Kristy Finck said she is very proud of the girls for not giving up and continued to work hard as a team. The morning was a little tough, but the afternoon playing was some of the best they have had this season. 

On Tuesday the Hornets traveled to Brandon to take on the Chargers. The Hornets were successful at all levels, as the C-squad, JV and Varsity won their games. The varsity came out in full force and controlled the match from start to finish. Game scores were 25-19, 25-13 and 25-9. 

Finck said she was very pleased with our play as we played with a high level of energy throughout the whole match. It is the one thing we need to work on at all levels. She said she knows it is difficult when mistakes happen and they get down on ourselves, but staying positive and looking past the mistakes helps a lot.

Finck said she tells the girls, volleyball really is a game of mistakes, they just have to forget it and move onto the next play. Throughout the night Finck said she saw a lot of improvement on this, it was fun to see the girls having fun, The Hornets were led by Addison Bode and Brynn Reinbold with 9 kills each. Freshman Jocelyn Oseien had a good night hitting adding 7 kills.  Hailey Fiskum led the team with 3 ace serves and 11 digs and Alivia Emter led the team in set assists with 28. 

On Thursday, the Hornets hosted a very scrappy Verndale Pirates team. Last year the Pirates lost in the Section 5A championship and brought back four players from that team. They never quit, and kept sending the ball back to Henning’s court hoping for the Hornets to make the mistakes. It was a successful strategy for them and it took five full games to get the victory. 

The first two games Henning controlled the sets, winning 25-15, 25-10, but the next three sets were completely back and forth. Verndale won sets 3 and 4: 22-25, 24-26. 

The fifth set looked to be all Hornets, but at 12-7 the Pirates made a comeback with some solid serving and scrappy defensive plays. The Hornets were able to finish 15-13.

The Hornets were led by Brynn Reinbold with 15 kills and 4 solo blocks. Addison Bode had 14 kills and 22 digs. Jocelyn Oseien once again had 7 kills, Lily Grieger 5 and Haley Hanson added 4. Grieger also added 3 solo blocks and Hanson had 2. Bella Olson led the team with 27 digs and Hailey Fiskum had 25. Alivia Emter dished out 41 set assists and led the team with 2 ace serves. 

Leading the Hornets in the Parkers Prairie Tournament was Addison Bode, she had 45 kills, 40 digs and 3 ace serves. Brynn Reinbold added 23 kills, Jocelyn Oseien had 19, Haley Hanson 13 and Lily Grieger 10. Alivia Emter had 99 set assists on the day, 31 digs, 7 kills and 4 ace serves. Bella Olson, Hailey Fiskum, Abbigale Godding and Zoey Gruber did a good job picking up balls and serving aggressively to keep us on the offensive end of the game. Reinbold, Grieger, Hanson and Emter all did a good job blocking, they combined for 22 solo blocks on the day. 

This week the Hornets have two matches, on Tuesday they travel to Battle Lake for an afternoon game and Thursday they will host Bertha-Hewitt.