On Saturday morning, the Prescott Cardinal volleyball team travelled to Osceola for a Middle Border Conference match with the Chieftains. __Prescott entered the match with a 2-1 record after winning a thrilling five set match Thursday night over the New Richmond Tigers.__ Thursday night, a recurring theme was Prescott jumping out to early leads in most of their matches against the Tigers.__It would be no different as the Cardinals raced out to an early 9-4 lead in set one.__The Chieftains struggled to return serve, and when they did, the Prescott outside hitters were led by Reece Ptacek, pounding them with beautiful cross-court winners.__The teams would trade points back and forth as Prescott led 15-10.__Then Osceola would respond, with a lot of good defense at the net and eventually tied the set at 15-15.__Prescott called timeout._ _ After the timeout, Osceola would continue their onslaught scoring six more points and taking a 21-15 lead.__The Chieftains had scored 11 straight points.__Prescott again would call timeout to try and get some momentum. __After finally scoring a point to break the streak, Osceola easily finished out the set with a 25-17 win.__ The theme continued in set two as Prescott again took an early lead, 4-2.__Prescott again put home some more crosscourt winners. Osceola would counter with five straight points to take a 7-4 lead.__Prescott was scrambling to defend serves and the girls struggled to set up their offense. __Osceola was finishing at the net and when they were not blasting shots off blockers, they were finding the middle of the Prescott defense with touch shots.__This would continue throughout the rest of the set as the Chieftains cruised to another 25-17 set win.

For the first time in the match, Prescott fell behind in set three. Osceola scored the first three points of the set.__Prescott then scored four straight with Morgan Lundeen serving to take a 4-3 lead.__Prescott extended their lead, taking advantage of the Chieftains backline.__The Cardinals scored five straight points with Mayah Miller serving, pushing the lead was up to 12-5.__Prescott coasted to a dominant 25-13 set victory. Numerous times the Osceola backline was unable to return shots fired at them. The Chieftains defense at the net had previously kept the Prescott offense in check, but now the Cardinals offense, led by Ptacek, was firing on all cylinders. ___ The fourth set started out with Osceola taking an early 4-2 lead as they were seemingly blocking everything at the net.__ After a few long serves by Prescott, the Cardinals came back by attacking the Chieftain’s backline and tying the score at 7-7.__After a short, three-point outburst by Osceola, the Cardinals called timeout trailing 10-7 in the set.__Prescott had a few miscommunications after play resumed and Osceola started to attack the Cardinals backline.__Prescott couldn’t get its offense going, as Osceola continued its great defensive play at the net, blocking Cardinal shot after shot.__The Cardinals were never able to mount a serious comeback attempt and Osceola would win set four by a score of 25-14.__ Osceola won the match three sets to one._ _ They win 25-17, 25-17, 13-25, 25-14.__Prescott falls to a record of 2-2 on the season. __ Prescott is next in action Monday night in Amery where they will look to get back over .500 on the season.__

Prescott tops New Richmond in five sets

On Thursday night, the Cardinals faced off with the New Richmond Tigers in a Middle Border Conference battle.__Prescott had split their two previous matches.__The girls fell to St. Croix Central in four sets back on September 15th. The Cardinals rebounded on September 29th, defeating Somerset in five sets Prescott raced out to an early lead in the first set, scoring the first four points.__New Richmond would respond scoring nine of the next thirteen points, to take a 9-8 lead.__Prescott then would answer again with four straight points to go back on top, 12-9.__From that point, Prescott would cruise to a 25-18 first set win with a variety of touch shots and power that the Tigers could not stop.__If Reese Ptacek was firing away from the outside, Sydney Matzek, Bella Lenz, and others were scoring up front.__If Prescott needed a big dig the ball seemed to find Maddie Matzek, who also supplied a lot of energy for the Cardinals.

Prescott again started out well in the second set building a lead of 9-6._ _ New Richmond started a run with several touch shots and a service ace, taking a 15-12 lead and seemingly having all the momentum.__At this point the Prescott coaches took the first timeout of the set and it seemed to be exactly what the doctor ordered.__The Cardinals scored the first four points out of the timeout and take the lead back, 16-15.__Prescott would build leads of 20-18 and 23-20, only to see New Richmond take timeouts and battle back.__With the score 24-23 and the set in doubt, the Cardinal coaches would take the final timeout of the set. Again, the timeout seemed to right the ship as Prescott won set two, 25-23.__Fittingly Ptacek fired home the winner.__ The third set started much like the first two sets, with Prescott taking an early lead and New Richmond battling back to take the lead.__Prescott would lead early 3-1, then New Richmond led 8-5.__The teams would then battle back and forth as the set was tied at 12-12 and then at 16-16.__At this point, New Richmond’s coaches would take a timeout feeling the match was slipping away.__After the timeout, Prescott struggled to return serve and couldn’t get their offense going.__The Tigers would pull away, winning 25-19.

Feeding off of the momentum of their first set win of the evening, New Richmond would race out to a 5-1 lead in set four.__The Tigers defense blocked two Cardinal shots keying the run.__Prescott, not to be out done, would come back to tie the set 7-7 with a run of their own.__A couple great scrambles on defense kept the play alive and the outside power game got the Cardinals right back in it.__After both teams battled back and forth, Prescott would take the lead on the strength of its defense. Several good digs and a couple of blocks later, the Cardinals led 19-13.__Just when it seemed Prescott had finally put the Tigers away, they again rallied.__This time they would make a couple big blocks and when Prescott called a timeout, the lead was down to 20-18.__After a service ace giving the Tigers the 23-22 lead, Prescott would take their second time out of the fourth set.__Despite a couple late service errors, New Richmond would power by Prescott to win a nail-biting fourth set, 26-24.

With the Tigers battling back to tie the match at two sets apiece, a fifth set needed to be played to decide a winner.__A lesser team would just fold under the pressure of losing the last two sets, but Prescott again would jump out to an early lead and when Prescott scored to make it 10-7, the Tigers called time out.__As had happened most of the night, the timeout seemed to change momentum. New Richmond would close to within one point at 12-11, but after a long scramble back and forth, the Tigers hit a shot long, giving the Cardinals the 13-11 lead.__New Richmond would then call a timeout to try and make one last push to steal a victory. __The Cardinals had other thoughts, as they quickly scored the final two points, winning the decisive fifth set by a score of 15-11.

Prescott won the match 25-18, 25-23, 19-25, 24-26, 15-11.__With the win, they improved to 2-1 on the season.

Photo by Faun Stanton.