Knight schools Cards

The Clinton Lady Cardinals volleyball team had no answer for Smith-Cotton’s Katie Knight.

Knight roamed the middle of the net, collecting 12 kills and deflecting a number of Clinton spikes, as the Smith-Cotton Lady Tigers defeated Clinton 25-12, 25-19 on Tuesday night.

“She’s improved quite a bit over the offseason,” said Smith-Cotton coach Chad Harter. “She worked quite a bit with Kristi Miller, our setter. They’ve been working real hard at getting plays down, getting continuity together up on the front line, so I’m really happy to see what happened there with our offense tonight.”

Smith-Cotton (1-0) jumped out in front early in the opening game, but Clinton closed to within 6-5 before the Lady Tigers took control.

Briana Williams nailed a kill to extend the Smith-Cotton lead to 8-5. Miller had a kill that made it 14-7. Sarah Stathem’s kill pushed the Lady Tigers’ lead to 18-10, and Williams ended the match with a kill.

During that first game the Lady Tigers kept the pressure on Clinton, often forcing it to abandon its attacks and just hit free balls over the net. Those free balls enabled Smith-Cotton to set its offense and attack the net.

“We were really impressed the first game. It seemed like we had good serves, good serve-receive. It seemed like everything was going for us on offense,” said Harter.

Clinton settled down, improved its serve-receive, and began to push the action at the Lady Tigers in the second game.

Smith-Cotton pulled out to a 9-4 lead, but the Lady Cardinals began to chip away behind aggressive serving and the hitting of Maria Gassen.

Michelle Charles, Katy Bergerhoffer and Malori McGhee each had aces as the Lady Cardinals fought back to tie the score at 13.

The game remained close the rest of the way until several Clinton errors and a pair of Knight kills finished off the win for the Lady Tigers.

“In the second game, it seemed like Clinton was a little more on,” said Harter. “I really felt like we were still playing well. We had a few lapses on our defense. Lost a little bit of momentum and Clinton really took a hold of that and really challenged us there. I was really happy that we came back and pulled through that. It showed a lot of heart from our team.”

Miller finished with 22 assists, while Williams added four kills. Freshman Jordan Luper contributed three kills in her first varsity action.