October 3, 2023
For the second match in a row, the Cardinals played a team at or near the bottom of the conference standings. Two weeks ago, the Cards didn’t play their best match ever against Panorama, but still won in straight sets. On September 26 at home against West Central Valley, the Cardinals were not sharp again—and the match was a little more scary. Earlham pulled one out of the fire, though, coming back from being down 2 sets to none to avoid the upset, winning, 3-2, (21-25, 23-25, 25-12, 26-24, 15-13).
To their credit, West Central did not look like a team that had only won three matches all year. They played loose, played hard, and scrapped to get a ton of balls over the net. The Cards were not overlooking this opponent, but perhaps they were waiting around for the Wildcats to roll over. That never happened.
“It was mainly their defense,” said Lily Conry. “I think that’s when we struggle sometimes, when teams are really good defensively and we’re not putting down the ball every single serve or every free ball we get. We need to collect ourselves and not hit one out of bounds or miss a serve—hose little things we need to do against teams like that.”
“At the beginning of the game, we did say that this is a beatable team and we should beat them,” added Presley Koberg. “After we were down two, we kind of had to regain our focus and play more as a team. We were playing individually, I think, for the first two. And once we brought it together, we pulled some really crazy points out.”
A lot of those ‘crazy points’ were the result of the work of Kenna Harskamp. There aren’t any statistics for some of the things she did to keep rallies alive, frequently flying out of bounds and hitting the ball with one-armed, backward swings.
Coach Harskamp would prefer that the play not be so ‘crazy,’ but the offense never really got going against the Wildcats. Still, some of the hitters had some good swings on the night. Conry had 12 kills, Kenady Ridout had 9, and Koberg had 6. Koberg swung as aggressively as she has all season.
“Whenever I get on the bench, (assistant coach) Kelcie (Hale) is like, ‘Swing hard! Swing hard,’” said Koberg. “And so, at the end, in that third set, I was really trying to do that. I have to really tell myself to swing hard because if I don’t, I’m not in the right mindset. Tonight, I knew that their block wasn’t going to be that big.”
With her team struggling early, Coach Harskamp substituted more than usual, trying to find the right combinations. Like everything else in this match, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.
“It was one of those nights when we didn’t make the right decisions,” said Conry. “I think that also comes with playing together, putting the right pieces together. I think that’s something that we’re trying to do right now.”
One of the new pieces was freshman Piper Koberg—Presley’s sister—who got her first varsity playing time. She got an important kill at one point and provided a nice emotional lift for one specific teammate.
“I did have tears in my eyes when she got subbed in,” said Presley. “And then when she got a kill, I was so proud of her. It was amazing.”
The Cards’ sluggish, uneven play caught up to them in the first two sets, and they let both of them slip away. Earlham led 15-13 in the 1st, but were outscored 12-6 down the stretch. In the 2nd, the Cards held an 18-17 lead, but could not hold on.
The Cardinals bounced back in the 3rd set and got out to a 12-2 lead. The Wildcats played better from that point, but could not make a run at the Cards.
West Central looked like they were going to put the match away in the 4th, leading 22-17. Conry got 3 kills in the next 4 points and the Cards trailed by 1. They tied the game on an ace by Rowen Fisk. WCV got the next two points on Earlham errors and they had match point, 24-22. The Cards got a side out when the Wildcats blocked a ball out of bounds, then tied the set when Olivia Nixt’s short serve fell for ace, right on the line. The Cards got the next two points to tie the match at 2 sets apiece.
The Cards were in trouble again in the 5th and final set, trailing 9-6, but Kenady Ridout and Presley got kills, Presley scored with a dink, and the score was tied. The Cards trailed, 13-12, when the Wildcats had a critical service error. Ridout scored on a dink, Presley got a kill, the Wildcats had a net violation, and the match was over.
Harskamp led the team with 17 assists and 25 digs.
September 28
At a tri at East Union, the Cards beat the host Eagles, 2-1 (24-26, 25-13, 15-12), but lost to Lenox, 2-0 (17-25, 24-26).
September 30
The Cards won 3 of 4 matches at a tournament in Madrid. They beat the host Tigers, 2-1 (21-6, 21-7), Collins-Maxwell, 2-0, (21-15, 21-16), and Panorama, 2-1 (21-16, 19-21, 18-16), and lost to Ankeny Christian Academy, 2-0 (12-21, 10-21).
Earlham Echo 
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