Heather Seiden hopes the St. Edmond High School volleyball team will look more relaxed the next time they take to the court.
Webster City battled back at a bustling Gael Gymnasium on Tuesday night, winning a five-set North Central Conference match in dramatic fashion.
The scores were 25-15, 23-25, 21-25, 25-21, 15-13.
“I think there was a lot of pressure on the girls.” Said Seeden: “We’ve had a really good season, but with that comes a little bit of pressure and I feel like we didn’t handle it well.”
“We just have to get back to having fun and relaxing and playing.”
For the Lynx (9-8 overall, 4-0 NCC), Marissa Hedeen recorded 30 kills, including six in the deciding set of the fifth set. Olivia Galentine added 18 kills and Adilynn Orton contributed nine kills and four blocks.
St. Edmond (10-6, 2-2) was led by Mariah Myers, Ava Anderberg and Faith Sher-Brown. Myers had 16 kills, while Anderberg and Sher-Brown had eight each.
“In each huddle, during timeouts, I tried to remind them to just relax and play.” “There are a lot of things you can take away from a loss like this, but the biggest thing is letting them come back in the fourth set,” Seeden said.
“We lost momentum and never got it back.”
Ava Andrew started the final set with an ace, but the Lynx quickly scored three straight points. From there, the two teams traded points before the Gaels went on a 5-0 run with another ace from Andrew and a kill from Shar-Brown.
Shar-Brown had his eighth kill of the night to make the score 12-10.
That’s where Headeen, one of Webster City’s six seniors, stepped up. She recorded consecutive kills, then a block, to give the Lynx the advantage.
Hedeen then had her 30th kill of the match to pull within 14-12, before Anderberg pulled St. Edmond to within one point. From there, the visitors ran out for the win.
“It’s a tough, loud gym to play in, but it’s always a good atmosphere for competition.” “The girls really took control of everything they could and used the energy of the crowd to overcome fatigue,” WCHS head coach Jess Howard said.
“I feel like their mental toughness made the difference.”
Lauren Gibb had nine kills and two blocks for the Gaels, Claire O’Connor had five kills, Chloe Palmer had three kills and two blocks, and Andrew finished with six aces.
Tristin Wright contributed six kills and three blocks to help Webster City maintain its lead atop the conference race, improving to 11-1 in its last 12 meetings with St. Edmond and 20-5 since 2007.
The Lynx next face Iowa Falls-Alden in a home game on Monday, while the Gaels travel to Algona on Oct. 3.
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