MONTAGUE — Montague fought to the end against Fremont in Tuesday's West
Michigan Conference Lakes opener, but dropped a five-game battle, 25-18,
25-18, 13-25, 23-25, 15-10.
“We came out of the chute very slow,”
Montague coach Gretchen Schneider said. “We didn’t do the things that we
wanted to do to seal games one and two. Going into game three, there’s a
culvert and added pressure that doesn’t need to be there. We brought
that on ourselves. But the girls played hard and came back for sets
three and four. But in the end, the pendulum just swung to Fremont.
"We’ve
been struggling with serves, and everyone went to the back of the line
and their serves were reared. Everybody served really well. Serving was
at 91%, which is amazing. That’s fantastic.”
Schneider credited two
of her players who stood out during the fight against Fremont, junior
Reagan Cederquist and senior Jaelyn Sundberg. Sundberg had 28 assists
and 25 digs. “Cederquist had 12 attacks, six kills,” said Schneider.
“Her hitting out of the middle was amazing. Sundberg, our setter, does a
really nice job leading the team. We celebrated her 3,000-assist (career)
milestone. I’m asking her to spread the ball around a bit more and she’s
starting to do that, but we need to do it more.”
The other top
hitters of the night were senior Maizie Collins with 15 kills, junior
Emalee McGee with eight kills, and senior Ava Pumford with five kills.
Fremont came in with a season record of 13-5, making Tuesday's a challenging match for the Wildcats (6-6-2, 0-1 WMC Lakes).
“I
think that Fremont was scrappy tonight,” Schneider said. “Everything we
hit over, they dug up. Kudos to them, running a really tight defense.
They shut down most of our hitters and that’s how you win.”
McGee was
also a leading scorer with 11 service points and three aces. Gentry
Knop had 17 service points and Maizie Collins had 16.
“I’m very proud
of the way the girls never gave up,” said Schneider. “They were behind
several times and just kept playing hard. But we’ve got to play our game
from the minute we step onto the court.”
