By Kerry Rodd
Cardinals sweep Rebels
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Dave Harwig
Cromwell's Sascha Korpela wins a 50/50 ball over Moose Lake/Willow River's Jorja Jusczak during Tuesday night's volleyball match at Cromwell High School.
Entering Tuesday night's volleyball match, Cromwell-Wright was 0-1 and Moose Lake/Willow River was 2-0, but the hometown Cardinals rode strong net play to a convincing 3-0 win, with scores of 25-16, 25-18 and 25-17.
"We played very well and just had a good all-around game," said Cards coach Amy Granholm. "We finally started to swing at the ball instead of just tipping the ball and it made a difference."
Up front, the Cards were led by Sascha Korpela and Kyra Granholm with 12 and 10 kills, respectively. Korpela added six digs while Granholm had seven digs and three blocks.
"This was our first game against a team with big hitters," said ML/WR coach Caitlin Miller. "It was an eye opener for our team."
Cromwell-Wright opened the season with a loss to Carlton in a game that Coach Granholm said felt "too cute" at the net.
"We found out we need to swing hard at the ball and it was a big difference against Moose Lake/Willow River," she said.
The Cardinals Katie Metzer helped secure the win Tuesday, with 14 set assists and 100 percent serving, going 14-for-14 in the service game. Siiena Anderson also added 10 set assists in the Cards 4-2 offense.
Dave Harwig
Cromwell's Kyra Granholm hits past the defense of Cromwell's Alexis Hoffman during Tuesday night's volleyball match.
"We had a lot more energy and an urgency to win," Granholm said. "We played with confidence, more together and some fluency compared to the choppy game against Carlton. It was a good improvement."
While the Cards saw improvement from their first game, the Rebels coaching staff also hope to use the match as a stepping stone as the season progresses.
"I think we learned a lot," Miller said. "We need to get our blocks up faster, we missed some serves and at times we beat ourselves, but I think we will learn from this and get better."
Hannah Roach and Alexis Hoffman led the Rebels with four kills each, while Laura Stephenson had five set assists and Jorja Jusczak had four set assists for the Rebels.
The loss set the Rebels at 2-1 on the season, and the win evened the Cards record at 1-1.
