By John Rittenhouse
The Luverne volleyball team experienced some ups and downs while playing a pair of road matches since last Thursday.
The Cardinals beat Worthington in a four-game match to record their first Southwest Conference win of the campaign Thursday, but they came up on the short end of a 3-0 score in Jeffers against Red Rock Central Tuesday.
Luverne, 8-7-1, is bracing for its busiest stretch of the season that includes competition in four of the next six days.
The Cards host Pipestone-Jasper and Martin County West today and Monday respectively. The Hull (Iowa) Western Christian Tournament is set for Saturday, and Luverne plays Russell-Tyler-Ruthton in Tyler Tuesday.
RRC 3, Luverne 0
A solid Falcon squad ended what was a two-match winning streak for LHS when the teams met in Jeffers Tuesday.
RRC, a talented team led by four strong seniors, outscored the Cards 45-28 during a three-game sweep.
"We played hard, but our weaknesses really showed up against a lot quicker team," said Cardinal coach Mary Jo Graphenteen. "We dug up a lot of balls, we served tough and we received serves fairly well. We just couldn’t score."
The match started in a promising way when the Cards took a 13-9 lead in Game 1, but the Falcons scored the next six points to pull out a 15-13 win.
RRC went on to post 15-5 and 15-10 wins in Games 2 and 2.
Susan Remme led LHS with eight kills. Tracey Scheidt, who was 13 of 14 serving, added six kills.
Luverne 3, Worthington 1
The Cardinal girls produced their first conference victory of the season when they bested the Trojans in a four-game match in Worthington Thursday.
Luverne came up on the short end of the first game of the clash, but the Cards raced to early leads in the next three games and won each contest to give them a 1-3 SWC record for the campaign.
"With the exception of the first game when we made a lot of mistakes, this was a really good match for us," said Cardinal coach Mary Jo Graphenteen. "We came back after that first game and did some really good things. I really felt we took another step forward in this match."
Worthington had its way in Game 1 by securing a 15-8 win, but the rest of the match belonged to LHS.
The Cards scored the first seven points in Games 2 and 3 while rolling to 15-5 and 15-10 wins.
Luverne scored the first five points of the fourth game and led 5-4 before outscoring the Trojans 10-5 the rest of the way to win 15-9.
"Our floor play is getting better," Graphenteen added. "We’re digging up a lot of balls and making them playable. Our serving was in the 90-percentile range, too. We’ve really improved a lot since the beginning of the season."
Susan Remme and Tracey Scheidt led the Cards at the net with 19 and seven kills respectively.
Scheidt was 20 of 22 serving with 14 points, and Brooke Lundgren was 20 of 21 with 13 counters.
Graphenteen said Emmy Bush filled in for the injured Emily Kuhlman as a middle hitter and did a nice job.