As the road to the State Tournament looms ahea…

By Sports Dept.

A healthy IMS records 18-straight game wins

As the road to the State Tournament looms ahead, the Iowa Mennonite volleyball team, back at full strength, swept through the Washington Tournament, winning all 12 games on-route to capturing the title last Saturday.

The Maroon and Black opened the day with a quick defeat of Sigourney (15-2, 15-3), then withstood strong attacks from Mid-Prairie (15-6, 15-7) and Regina (15-11, 15-9). IMS cruised through the afternoon, defeating Wilton (15-9, 15-6), Washington (15-6, 15-1), and taking two from a fired-up Highland team (15-7, 17-16).

Despite the dominating performance, IMS coach Dwight Gingerich was most happy with having the entire team back together and playing well.

“For the first tournament this season, IMS was healthy. It felt good to have everyone on the court. We still have a lot of things to work on, but it was great to see us play with some consistency,” Gingerich said.

Gingerich also praised the play of players off the bench and from those just coming back from injury. He said everyone on the team made strong contributions all day long, including previously injured players Jeana Pickard and Katie Boshart who came off the bench and made an immediate positive impact on the team’s performance.

Pickard finished the day with 11 kills and nine blocks while Boshart put down 20 kills.

Jessica Wilson had another excellent tournament with a team leading 63 kills and 27 blocks. Wilson also served a perfect 27-for-27 with three aces. Shantell Detweiler also recorded another excellent all-around performance with eight kills, 31 digs, and serving 26-for-27 with six aces.

Ashley Wilson recorded 15 kills, 11 blocks, and served 22-for-25 with seven aces. Tammy Darby led the team in serving going 46-for-48 with ten aces. Cammy Perez was 26-for-27 with two aces in serving and had 18 digs. Jill Widmer went 48-51 with three aces and collected 17 digs. Kristi Miller put up 91 assists and recorded seven kills of her own.

After a much needed week of rest, the IMS volleyball team had everyone back in uniform for the first time in several weeks at conference matches against Wapello and Louisa-Muscatine. With all players now back in uniform, the balance and consistent attack signature to the Maroon and Black had been restored.

IMS avenged its semifinal loss to Wapello with a 15-9, 15-4, 15-8 sweep of Wapello at home Thursday. Wapello had beaten a banged-up IMS team 2-1 in the SEISC conference tournament two week ago.

“It was great to get everyone back in the line-up and to see us play with the cohesiveness we’ve lacked recently,” coach Gingerich said.

Wapello had jumped to a quick 3-0 lead in the first game before the Maroon and Black got into full swing behind the serving and strong play of Kristi Miller and great efforts put in by Jessica Wilson and Katie Boshart on the front line. IMS easily controlled the remainder of game one as well as the rest of the match.

IMS served 57-for-59 with 20 aces as a team. Kristi Miller served 11-for-12 with seven aces to go along with three blocks and all of the team’s 19 assists. Tammy Darby was a perfect 14-for-14 from the line with four aces, as was Shantell Detweiler and Jill Widmer who went 8-for-8 with three aces and 12-for-12 with four aces respectively.

Jessica Wilson led the team with 12 kills and five blocks while Katie Boshart put down four kills. Shantell Detweiler had two kills and eight digs. Cammy Perez also had a good game defensively with six digs.

Wapello, ranked 20th in Class 1A, is now 4-2 in conference play heading toward the end of the regular season. IMS is now ranked 15th.

“It was an excellent team effort and, it took that to beat a very quality Wapello team,” Gingerich said.

IMS swept L-M 15-5, 15-5, 15-3 at Letts last Wednesday. Coach Gingerich reported IMS’s serving game gave L-M trouble all night as the team recorded 18 aces over three games. Three servers were perfect on the evening, led by Shantell Detweiler who went 11-for-11 with four aces. Cammy Perez served 10-for-10 with an ace and Kristi Miller was 9-for-9 with two aces. Jill Widmer also had a good night on the line by serving 11-for-12 with five aces.

IMS also had a balanced attack as six different players recorded kills. Jessica Wilson led the team with seven as Jeana Pickard and Ashley Wilson each added four. Kristi Miller put up all of IMS’s 18 assists.

Defensively, Jessica Wilson had five blocks and four digs while Widmer had five digs.

Gingerich said the team responded well to having everyone back and available to play.

“While we didn’t necessarily play great, it felt great to have everyone back which allowed us to get people in their normal positions. As a result, there were some real bright spots in our play,” Gingerich said.

IMS is now 24-3-4, 6-0 in the SEISC.