Rams top Kuemper in battle of ranked teams


Glenwood’s Olivia Hanover notched six kills in the win over Kuemper Catholic last week

Glenwood handed Kuemper Catholic its first Hawkeye 10 Conference loss of the season in a battle of ranked teams in Carroll last Tuesday.

The Class 4A, No. 7 ranked Rams (25-5 overall, 5-1 in the conference) dropped the first set 25-23 before bouncing back to win the final three 25-20, 25-18, 25-21 to lock up the win over the Class 3A, No. 7 ranked Knights (27-2 overall, 7-1 in the conference).

After dropping that first set, Glenwood coach Paula Carman said she wasn’t exactly nervous, but rather hopeful her team could settle in and make adjustments on the fly.

“I feel like we did a really good job the first 15 points (in the first set), so it wasn’t like we weren’t doing things well, we just kind of broke down mentally the last seven or eight points,” Carman said. “I don’t know if that was nervous, but we did need to find that switch.”

The Rams did indeed switch it on going forward winning the final three sets.

Carman said each of her players contributed to a variety of ways to swing that momentum back Glenwood’s way. As a team they hit .194 with 54 kills.

Kaylee Wray and Charley Hernandez came up big in the attack with 19 and 17 kills each, respectively. But they weren’t the only ones to with key swings across the front. Both Ilsa Kemling (12 kills) and Olivia Hanover (six kills) both had strong performances in the middle.

“Ilsa set the tone early with our offense and kind of got in the heads of Kuemper a little bit because she came out swinging big and they really started homing in on her and that opened things up for our other hitters. I think that was beauty of this game:  everybody contributed really well and if something wasn’t working, we went to something else.”

Allison Koontz paced the Ram offense with 46 set assists.

“She’s really moving things well along the floor right now,” Carman said.

If there was one area Carman thought, her team struggled it was as the service line. Too many unforced errors and with a tepid 83.5 percent serving efficiency.

“It feels like the only thing we didn’t do well was serve,” she said. “There will be a lot of touches on serves in practice.”

Addy Anthofer and Kolbi Peter led the Knights with nine kills and Karsyn Overmohle, had 15 set assists.

The Opinion-Tribune

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