Katie Leece (Photo by Cameron Carlson)
DEVILS LAKE — The Royals took care of business against the last-place team in the Mon-Dak on Wednesday.
Despite an uncomfortably close first two sets, Lake Region State College (20-7, 4-1) swept Dakota College at Bottineau (0-15, 0-5) at the Devils Lake Sports Center. The winless Lumberjacks have now lost 34 consecutive sets. The Royals held their position in second place in the Mon-Dak.
Still, the first two sets were relatively close wins of 25-21 and 25-20 for LRSC. The Royals put away the third set with a little more authority, 25-11.
“If we’re 15 points better than a team, then we should beat a team by 15 points,” LRSC head coach Steve Waddell said. “And our biggest thing is we want to get better every day. And I felt like the first two sets, we didn’t really do that. We weren’t really getting better. So they really turned it around that third set.”
In the first set, the Royals never won more than three points in a row. The Jacks never won more than two in a row.
LRSC got the occasional flashy shot from players like Anne Stroklund and Lexie Shearer, but it also made too many errors. The Jacks returned a ton of potential kills. It was a series of back-and-forth that the Royals eventually pulled out, 25-21.
“[The Jacks] fought. They played really, really good defense,” Waddell said. “They attacked the ball nicely. They have one outside [hitter] that can really swing. I think we made a few too many errors on our side of the net, too, than what I like and what we’re used to.”
Outside hitter Katie Leece, who had only one kill in the first set, got going with five in the second set to lead a 25-20 win.
Much of the second set went the same way as the first. Bottineau actually had leads of 10-9 and 13-12. LRSC finally got its first 4-0 run to go ahead 16-13, but Bottineau got its first 3-0 run to tie it back up.
The Royals took the final four points to seal the win. Through the first two sets, Stroklund and Kaitlyn Erickstad were tied for the team lead in kills with seven, unofficially.
Leece had two blocks in the first three points of the third set, helping LRSC to a 4-0 start. Bottineau responded with three in a row of its own, but the Royals took eight of the next 10 to separate themselves.
Leece smacked six kills in the third set, along with her second ace of the match. Setter Sydney Schwabe came up with four aces in the third set to give her five on the night.
The Royals finished the evening with a 25-11 win — more in line with what they would have expected against a team that hasn’t won a set since August.
“We still had our stumbles here and there, but I felt like that third set, our serving turned on a lot. And we work on serving. We preach serving every single day,” Waddell said. “So I felt like we came back there and went back to the line with serving in mind, and to serve tough and to serve smart, and we did our job.”
Up next, LRSC plays a pair of Minnesota North College teams on Saturday at Mesabi Quad. Its next conference match is against Dawson Community College (3-11, 1-4) on Tuesday in Glendive, Mont. The Royals only have one home match remaining, when they host Williston State College (9-6, 2-2) on Oct. 21.
