September 5, 2023
Cardinals Edge I-35
The Earlham Cardinals got an exciting conference win on August 29 when they beat I-35 at home, 3-2 (25-19, 18-25, 25-11, 25-27, 15-8). Despite dropping two sets, the Cardinals clearly looked like the better team for most of the night. Perhaps winning in straight sets over a team with just 2 wins in 8 matches would have been less taxing for the team—and less nerve wracking for Coach Harskamp—but it was the kind of win that can help a young team gain confidence.
“I feel like it will help us get a lot better,” said Kenna Harskamp. “We have a young team and I think it’s really coming together. Some girls are new this year and we already have a good connection. We have chemistry.”
After the match, Harskamp and Kennady Ridout judged their team’s performance at about “7 or 8.” Certainly, the raucous crowd and the energy in the gym all night provided the Cards with a boost of at least a fraction or two to that grade.
“When the student section is cheering like that, it really hypes everyone up,” said Kenna.
The Cardinals will probably feature a ‘hitter by committee’ situation this season—there are several girls that can step up on any given night. It was Ridout’s turn against the Roadrunners. She finished with 16 kills and took over at critical times in a couple different sets.
Ridout, though, thinks she can do better.
“I thought I was a little off,” she said. “But my cross was working a little bit.”
Lily Conry had a great night hitting, too, landing 13 kills.
With the Cardinals leading 19-11 in the 1st set, Ridout got kills on 4 of the next 5 points. After a service ace by Rowen Fisk, the Cards had set point at 24-12. The Roadrunners put a good run together and scored 7 points in a row, but it was too little too late. An I-35 service error ended the set.
The Cards’ last lead in the 2nd set was at 6-5. They fell behind after that and I-35 pushed their lead to 20-14. The Cards won 4 of the next 5 points to make the score 24-18, but the Roadrunners finished off the set with 4 points in a row.
With Kaylee Schmidt serving early in the 3rd set, the Cards went on a 6-0 run to lead, 8-2. I-35 got within 4 points at 10-6, but never got any closer than that. With Fisk drilling hard serves, the Cards scored 6 points in a row for the win.
The Cardinals fell behind, 15-9, in the 4th set, but rallied with 4 points in a row on kills by Presley Koberg and Ridout and 2 aces by Harskamp. With a kill by Ava Harris, the Cards finally got the score tied at 20, but Earlham could never get the lead after that. Kills by Koberg and Ridout staved off 2 set points, but an I-35 serve that tipped off the tape and dropped for an ace clinched the win.
With the score tied at 5 in the deciding 5th set, Harskamp pushed the ball deep to an open corner for a point, Conry got a kill, Koberg served an ace, Conry got a kill with a roll shot, I-35 hit a ball long, Koberg got another ace, and the Cards led, 9-3. I-35 could never mount a comeback and the Cardinals finished off the match with a relatively easy set victory.
Harris led the Cards with 24 assists. Conry had 22 digs and Fisk had 21.
Cards Blank Crusaders
The Cardinals took care of business on August 31, beating Coon Rapids-Bayard, 3-0 (25-13, 25-15, 25-22), at home. An oversimplified analysis of the match is that the Crusaders (3-5) made a ton of mistakes, and the Cards did not.
“Historically we have played down to a team’s level, especially when they are making mistakes,” said Coach Harskamp. “We can get sloppy. I didn’t feel like we did that either of the first two games. I thought we played pretty clean. We just did what we were supposed to do.”
With the Crusaders struggling in the first two sets, the Cards kept up the pressure and did not get sucked into a messy match. With advantages in quickness and athleticism, the Cardinals did not allow CRB to get anything going on offense and took advantage of their unforced errors.
“Our strategy is to keep the ball in the air as long as we can so we can put it away or they make a mistake,” said Coach Harskamp. “Some teams make them faster than others, and (Coon Rapids-Bayard) did in the first two sets. The third set, they didn’t make near as many.”
The Crusaders struggled with the Cardinals’ serves all night. With a handful of good servers on the team, Coach Harskamp feels like that area of the game will be an ongoing strength of the team.
“Tonight we served the best we have all year,” she said. “We’ve actually been struggling. (On August 26 in Avoca), we struggled a lot with serves. I told them, ‘It has nothing to do with the fact you can’t serve.’ Every single one of them has a really good serve. Tonight, they seemed a little more focused when they got behind the line.”
Against CRB—as well as in the previous match with I-35—the Cardinals’ energy was off the charts. They were flying around making plays, talking, smiling, and generally having a good time. That’s easy to do when you’re winning matches, but Coach Harskamp says that this team comes by all those things naturally.
“It sounds like that at practice. It’s fun,” she said. “They are always talking—both courts. There’s always a lot of energy.”
A couple of aces by Kennady Ridout got the Cards going early in the 1st set and they got out to a 7-2 lead. CRB battled back to trail by 1, 9-8, but two Lily Conry aces got things going the other way. The Cardinals closed out the set with a 16-5 run.
The Crusaders hung with the Cardinals early in the 2nd set, trailing by just 4, 11-7. A Cardinal 7-2 run that included a kill by Presley Koberg, 2 by Ava Harris, and 2 aces by Ridout, broke the game open and the Cards led, 19-9. CRB got within 6 points, but could not make a serious run at the Cards. The Cardinals struggled a bit in the 3rd set, trailing 12-8. Kills by Ally Presler and Koberg and a Crusader miss evened the score at 13, and the Cards never trailed again. Earlham outscored the Crusaders 12-8 to close out the match.
Earlham Echo 
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