Columbus High falls to Kearney

COLUMBUS - Kearney served well Tuesday night, hoping to keep the Columbus High volleyball team out of its system and was pretty much successful.

The Bearcats serving produced six ace serves and kept the Discoverers off balance all night in a 25-17, 25-18, 25-15 win at the CHS gym.

Doing most of the damage was Maggie Maher. She served 18 points and gave CHS problems when it tried to get a good pass to setter Abbey Arlt.

“We struggled with our passing tonight, and they got us out of system,” Columbus coach Jared Johnson said. “We were in system a few times tonight and did some good things. But when we were out of system, that allowed them to get their big guns going and it was tough for us to stop them.”

That was certainly the case in the first set as CHS had no answer for Sarah Warth and Iowa State recruit Kelsey Peterson. Peterson made her presence known in the middle of the game as she recorded three kills and two ace blocks, in a 5-0 run from Maher for a 18-11 lead. Then Warth did her part in the later stage of the game with three kills that increased the lead to 24-17 before a Maher kill ended the first set.

Peterson had five of her 14 kills in the opening set, while Warth recorded five of her nine kills. Kearney coach Megan Gangwish said she liked what she saw from Peterson and Warth in the first set.

“Those two girls have really come along,” Gangwish said. “They have started for me since they were sophomores and have gotten better and better with their overall game.”

Arlt had two ace serves in a run that gave the Discoverers a 7-5 lead to start the second set. Then they had trouble keeping their serves in play as they missed their next three serves but still managed to hold a 9-8 lead. Then Lauren Lemke put down an ace serve before serving up the fourth miss of the set to put the score at 11-9.

“I thought the missed serves were key,” Johnson said. “We still had the lead on them after missing all those serves. Who knows what would have happened if not for that because Kearney was very vulnerable at that point of the match.”

The Bearcats came back to tie the match at 12-all, then a service error gave Columbus the lead. Arlt increased the lead to two on a tip.

After the two teams traded points, Maher put together an 8-0 run with the help of two Peterson kills and four straight Columbus errors for a 22-15 lead before the Bearcats took the second set.

The third set started well for the Discoverers when Anne Gates pounded home a kill, then delivered two points for a 3-1 lead. After the two teams traded points, Maher went back to the service line and put together a 5-0 run for a 7-5 lead. The serving continued to cause problems for CHS passers as they sent over freeballs to Kearney, which led to easy attacks as the lead increased to 16-8.

Columbus appeared to have found some energy after Sarah Schroeder kept a ball alive and the defense sent the ball over and Kearney made an error. After that, another Kearney error and a Gates ace block brought CHS back to within 16-11. But a service error gave the Bearcats a point and momentum as they slowly put the match away.

Schroeder led the Discoverers with eight kills, while Arlt put up 17 set assists.

Johnson said CHS needs to believe and not be afraid of making mistakes in order to stay in matches. “We know we can compete with Kearney and North Platte and we've beaten Norfolk, so we need to take that mental edge into knowing we can do it and believing we can do it,” Johnson said. “When situations get close, we tend to question ourselves and do some second guessing and that leads to our errors.”

The Discoverers will close the regular season with a match with Fremont at 7 p.m. Monday.

Kearney (13-11) 25 25 25

Columbus (9-21) 17 18 15

n KEARNEY (Kills-aces-blocks): Maggie Maher 2-2-0; Carly Wegner 1-0-0; Morgan Schulte 0-2-0; Brandi Winchester 2-0-0; Erica Hromas 2-0-0; Nicole Arp 9-Sarah Warth 9-1-2; Kelsey Peterson 14-0-3.

n COLUMBUS (Kills-ace serves-blocks): Rashay Wright 4-0-0; Abbey Arlt 3-2-0; Sarah Schroeder 8-0-0; Anne Gates 6-1-1; Lauren Lemke 2-1-0; Ana Czarnick 2-0-2.

n ASSISTS: KEA - Hromas 25, Maher 3, Wegner 1, Peterson 1; CHS - Arlt 17, Lemke 3.