With their 3-1 win over the Menahga Braves on Thursday night, the Henning Hornets are now 5-0 in the Park Region Conference. The only other undefeated team in the conference is Wadena-Deer Creek. Sebeka and Pillager have the next best record in the conference as they both are 3-2. 

On Tuesday the Hornets host the Wolverines, this is a big game for the Lady Hornets, because a win would mean a Park Region Conference championship, a goal the team has set for the season. 

In the game against Menahga the Hornets played aggressively in the first first set. They controlled the set from start to finish, they served aggressively and attacked the ball making it very difficult for the Braves to get their offense going. In sets 2-4 Henning played well, however, they just missed too many serves and made more mistakes then they would have liked. 

The Hornets were able to fight hard in the end and win 27-25. Set three was very much like set two, however Henning could not execute offensively the last five points of the game and lost 23-25. Set four was a battle from start to finish, and the Hornets were able to work together and find a way to end the match with a kill by Brynn Reinbold. 

“Menahga came to Henning to battle hard. They have been playing most of the season without two of their starters due to injury, but those players are back and they are playing very good volleyball, so this win was a big one for us. We remain undefeated in the PRC and keep our eyes on our goal of PRC champions,” said head coach Kristy Finck.

The Hornets ended the match with 53 kills, serve received at 91% to target, and had 7 ace blocks on the night. Henning’s serving was the lowest it has ever been as they served 88% with only 5 aces on the night.  Addison Bode led the team with 22 kills and 31 digs. Brynn Reinbold and Lily Grieger each had 9 kills and 2 ace blocks. Alivia Emter led the team in set assists with 51. Haley Hanson and Jocelyn Oseien each had 5 kills. Bella Olson had 21 digs and Hailey Fiskum had 15 digs. 

Having only one game for the week was good, as many of our girls were sick and running low on energy. It helped to prepare them for the long Saturday tournament in Perham.  

The KLN Tournament is a very competitive 16 team tournament. Teams are seeded by using the team’s QRF ranking. The Hornets knew going into the tournament that they would be playing Staples-Motley and were guaranteed to play four matches, which were the best 2 of 3. The Hornets started a little slow against the Cardinals, but after one full rotation and getting Hailey Fiskum to the serving line they dominated the offensive end of the game. The Hornets defeated the Cardinals 25-19, 25-17. 

With this win the Hornets advanced to the winners bracket and faced  the very talented Barnesville Trojans team. The Hornets played some of the best volleyball they have played this season against the Trojans. Henning won the first set 25-23, then lost 23-25 and in set three they fell short 13-15. 

“I really felt like we were going to win the match, but the Trojans just kept fighting and got the ball to the floor more times than we did. It was an amazing game, I learned some things we need to work on before the playoffs start,” said Finck. 

Highlight of this game was that junior Addison Bode reached a career milestone of 1,000 digs. 

After the intense match against Barnesville and the excitement of Bode’s milestone, the Hornets next match did not go as they had wanted. Henning played against the Hillcrest Comets. The Comets are big and powerful and came out attacking in all positions. The Hornets were on their heels the whole game and just could not get their offense going. 

Henning ended up losing both sets, it was very disappointing, but that is what volleyball is like, especially in an all day tournament. After that loss the Hornets took on the Underwood Rockets. Underwood is ranked number one in Section 6A and are having an outstanding season. Finck said the team knew it was going to be another very tough match. The Hornets came out on fire, they did everything we wanted to do, serve aggressively, get a lot of blocks and put the ball down on their side of the court. Henning’s energy was contagious and the girls had fun. In game two, the Hornets still had the energy, but the Rockets made some changes in their line up and found ways to get more offense going. Henning continued to attack, but their defense was relentless and did not let balls drop, this helped them to take set two from us. Set three was a battle. We never let up, we had some crazy defensive digs and kept attacking, but the Rockets would fight back and let the Hornets make the mistake. The set went all the way to the end with the Rocket winning 15-12.

Finck said the overall record doesn’t show how they played on Saturday. She said she felt other than our game against Hillcrest, the Hornets played some of the best volleyball they have played this season. She said she was very proud of the girl’s effort and how hard they worked together on Saturday.

Addison Bode led the Hornets with 38 kills, 45 digs, 2 ace serves and 3 blocks. Also contributing offensively were Brynn Reinbold with 19 kills and 4 solo and 5 assist blocks and Lily Grieger who had 17 kills and 8 solo and 4 assist blocks. Haley Hanson also had a good blocking day as she had 3 solo blocks and 8 assist blocks. Jocelyn Oseien had 10 kills and Bella Olson added 7. Olson led the team in digs with 51. Hailey Fiskum led the team in serving going 48/48 with 5 ace serves. Alivia Emter led the team in set assists with 92, she also had 4 ace serves and 26 digs. Abbigale Godding and Zoey Gruber did a good job serving and playing defense. 

The Hornets only have three regular season games left, one game this week (Tuesday against Wadena-Deer Creek) and two games next week against Sebeka on Tuesday and Underwood on Thursday. The following week, they will start Sub-Section 6A tournament.