Cats pick up first win of 2024

All it took was the first set to fire up St. Paul Volleyball Head Coach Matt Koehn-Fairbanks as the 600+ win coach gave his young core of volleyball players a speech that roused up 3 straight set wins and their first win of the 2024 season with a 4 set victory over Ord on Tuesday evening. 

The Cats fresh off of being swept by David City last Thursday got off to a slow start in Set 1 to the Chants, thanks to a Trinity Chatfield service run. St. Paul found themselves in 0-1 hole falling in first set 16-25. That didn't deter the Cats one bit as the 2nd set saw St. Paul get out to an early 14-7 lead though things got interesting in the 2nd frame as Ord went on an 8-1 run on the ensuing sideout to tie things up at 15. Sophomore Aubree Fitzgerald paced the Blue and Gold through the 2nd set with 5 kills as St. Paul squeaked out a 25-21 set 2 Victory.

The Cats stole the momentum with that set 2 victory as Sets 3 and 4 went St. Paul's way with great service runs from Sophomore Zaya Lewis that included 3 of her 4 aces on the evening in those 2 sets, Junior Katie Oakley also got going in the latter frames with 5 kills each the latter frames enroute to St. Paul winning Set 3 25-14, and Set 4 to win the match 25-17.

The win moves St. Paul to 1-1 on the year while Ord falls to 0-2.

Zaya Lewis brings home Runza MVP of the game with her 4 aces and contributions from her service runs in the 3rd and 4th sets to propel the Cats to their first victory of the season.

Next up for St. Paul is a quick turnaround on Thursday as they have their 2nd home match of the year at St. Paul vs Sutton who was victorious on Tuesday vs BDS. The Match can be heard live on Country 96 and KRGI.com with the Pump and Pantry  Pre-Match show at 6:50.

St. Paul 1-1    16  25  25  25  - 3   
Ord      0-2    25  21  14  17  - 1

Trevor Bentley had a chance to catch up with Head Coach Matt Koehn-Fairbanks last night following the conclusion of the contest.