Cardinals focus in on post-season play

RANDOLPH – The Randolph volleyball squad finished the regular season on a positive note as it headed into Monday’s sub-district playoffs.

The Lady Cardinals (4-22) defeated Walthill 3-1 (25-18, 25-16, 23-25, 25-20) in the consolation finale of the Lewis and Clark Conference tournament last week.

That would come in handy as the No. 4 Lady Cardinals entered Monday’s sub-district opener against No. 5 Santee.

The winner would play No. 1 Wynot (226) in the semifinal later that night.

“I just want to see the team go out Monday night playing hard and having fun,” Randolph head coach Lyndsee English said. “When they do that, anything can happen.”

The win against Walthill was one that came with enthusiasm lacking, according to English.

“We played well enough to get the win,” English said. “We served tough with multiple girls recording ace serves. Lexi (Backhaus) also did a wonderful job setting to multiple people on the night. We had numerous girls recording kills. It’s great to see us utilizing all of our hitters.”

Jacey Bartels (13 kills, 10 digs), Mabel Ngebeh (six kills), Taylor Mavis (six kills, nine aces), Sydney Robinson (six kills), Katarina Greiner (four kills, three aces), Jocelyn Greiner (five aces. 10 digs), Ella Scott (33 digs) and Backhaus (33 assists, nine digs) led Randolph to the win.

“I think the last few weeks we’ve been playing better, more as a team,” Backhaus said. “We’ve lost the games, but we’ve definitely played better and more together. The games just felt overall good – mostly our talking. When we don’t talk during games, usually they don’t go very well. Our passing and hitting has improved from the start of the season.”

Backhaus said the team has stayed close during the rough and tumble of the campaign and are focused on common goals.

“We’ve lost a lot of our games. But we’re better than this, so we need to stay together and keep pushing throughout the season,” Backhaus said. “(At sub-districts) I think we just need to not think about all of our losses and think of our wins and think of how good we can play together. I think we’ll be good if we’ll play and we just think of those.”

In Monday night subdistrict action, the Lady Cardinals won in three sets against Santee and lost in three sets to Wynot.

Look for more information on these games in next week edition.