Balanced Rochester closes out Lewis Cass in TRC opener

Hunter leads with 8 kills, Wilson has 28 assists

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

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Aubrey WIlson Amara Wieringa Logyn Honkomp

Five Rochester volleyball players had at least five kills, and Aubrey Wilson had 28 assists as the Rochester volleyball team closed out visiting Lewis Cass 25-7, 25-16, 25-20 in their Three Rivers Conference opener at the RHS gym Tuesday.

Rochester trailed 19-18 in the third set before closing out the match on a 7-1 run with Logyn Honkomp behind the service line for the final four points. The run included an Adalyn Gonzalez kill, a Wilson service winner, a Brailyn Hunter kill, a Honkomp ace and an Amara Wieringa kill.

Hunter led with eight kills, Wieringa and Gonzalez had six kills each, and Makayla Walley and Sylvia McCall had five kills each.

Wieringa and Honkomp, the senior libero, had 11 digs each. Rilyn Strasser had 11 serves received.

Rochester will carry an 8-1 record and a 1-0 TRC mark into a road match with Peru Thursday.

“We tried a lot of our quicker sets, some of our little trick plays, and we (had) a couple of successes with that,” Rochester coach Laneia Strasser said. “Our serving was more aggressive, and we had a lot of success at that. Our connections were great in Set 1 and Set 2. And it’s our first conference win of the season, and I’m happy about that.”

Strasser said the team got “complacent” with its tempo in the third set.

“I always say you have to do all the little things all the time for the first 75 points, and I don’t feel like that was necessarily the case in Set 3, but it all started with this one rotation where (Presley Johnson) served, when she served, I feel like our passes weren’t quite to our target, so we were out of system a lot. So that right there, if you take away those rotations and put a better pass to our setters, that’s a different story too. All in all, I think our tempo was pretty good.”

Strasser used the trio of Jenna Seuferer, KayLea McCarty and Kyra Doran off the bench to serve. Seuferer had nine points, McCarty had six, and Doran had four.

“That was a little bit of my frustration tonight,” Strasser said when asked how her team handles it when their opponent goes on a run. “But they battled through it tonight, whereas at Culver (Academy) the other night, we lost a set because of that. We’re getting there. We’re inching away at that.”

Rochester had runs of 4-0, 5-0 and 9-0 in the first set. Seuferer closed out the first set with an eight-point run.

Rochester trailed 6-3 in the second set before going on an 8-0 run with Wieringa behind the line. Hunter had three kills in a four-point span, and Wieringa capped it with a service winner. Rochester led 20-13 when Wieringa added two more aces as part of a four-point run that also included kills from Hunter and McCall.

Rochester won without junior middle hitter Maddie Bailon, who suffered a left knee injury against Triton Aug. 24.

Rochester also won the JV match 25-14, 25-13.

Rochester def. Lewis Cass, 25-7, 25-16, 25-20

ROCHESTER STATS

Logyn Honkomp – 8 points, 1 ace, 8 serves received, 1 assist, 11 digs; Makayla Walley – 5 kills, 1 block, 2 assists, 1 dig; Kyra Doran – 4 points, 1 ace, 2 digs; Emma Mathias – 3 serves received, 5 digs; Adalyn Gonzalez – 6 kills, 1 serve received, 1 assist, 2 digs; Rilyn Strasser – 10 serves received, 2 digs; Aubrey Wilson – 6 points, 3 aces, 3 kills, 28 assists, 5 digs; Sylvia McCall – 5 kills, 1 block, 1 dig; Brailyn Hunter – 2 points, 8 kills, 1 block; Amara Wieringa – 16 points, 4 aces, 6 kills, 1 serve received, 2 blocks, 1 assist, 11 digs; KayLea McCarty – 6 points; Jenna Seuferer – 9 points, 1 ace