By Staff for www.mcpherson-county-ks.com
BENTON – On Saturday, the McPherson Middle School eighth-grade ‘B’ volleyball team traveled south to play at the Circle Middle School Tournament in Benton and finished with one win and three losses.
“The tournament at Circle was a good opportunity for our eighth-grade ‘B’ team to focus on communication and teamwork,” explained coach Tami Malm. “We started with low energy and didn’t pass very well in the first two matches.”
Opening up the day with a match against host Circle, the Junior Lady Pups took a humbling 12-25, 4-25 straight set loss before making a battle of their second match against Prairie Hills before losing again in straight sets (23-25, 12-25).
In their third match of the day, McPherson lost set one (21-25) to Newton before bouncing back to score two straight set wins (25-23, 15-12) to gain the overall match victory.
The Junior Lady Pups closed out the day with a three set loss (11-25, 25-11, 12-15) to Hutchinson.
Coach Malm concluded her comments on the tournament by saying, “While we missed quite a few serves against Newton, the girls began to pass better and put together some better volleys, making the second and third sets exciting wins! The final match of the day with Hutchinson was a nail biter, and the Junior Lady Pups served lights out, communicated, and moved their feet well. While we didn’t wrap up the last one with a win, we are showing promising growth.”
The eight-grade Junior Lady Pups are now 3-12 for the season.