Faribault Volleyball Drops Conference Road Opener

The Mankato West Scarlets volleyball team swept the Faribault Falcons tonight 25-13, 25-20, 25-21 to improve to 3-1 in the conference.  The Falcons do not have a single senior on their team.  With youth often comes inconsistency with the little things that, are ultimately not so little.

Like talking to each other on the court.  During one time out I read the lips of Faribault Head Coach JoAnna Lane encouraging her team to not let balls drop during a point by communicating.  There were a number of times during the match when the block was there for Faribault but no player was able to play the ball off the block.

My very unofficial statistics had the Falcons with a total of 30 errors in the 3 sets (double contacts, lifts, setting errors, in the net, serve errors, hitting errors, blocking errors).  Mankato West had 12 errors on the night.

Faribault definitely has talent on their team. In my opinion they let Mankato West stay in too many points by being timid in their attack.  Giving them soft balls in return instead of terminating the ball.

Our Faribault State Farm Insurance agents Faribault players of the game were Payton Evenstad with 11 kills unofficially to lead the team on a night when offense was at a premium for the Falcons.  Bennett Wolff supplied 5 blocks and Olivia Bauer tallied 7 kills.  Evenstad and Wolff are juniors, Bauer is a sophomore.

Faribault fell to 1-1 in Big Nine play and 3-5 overall.  Last Friday they played well at a tournament in Apple Valley winning over the host team 25-17, 27-25 and defeating Mounds View 25-19, 25-27, 15-7.

Saturday the competition became tougher and Faribault lost two matches but they were competitive.  Both were state ranked Class AA teams.  Concordia Academy downed the Falcons 25-12, 25-21.  Stewartville won 25-15, 25-21.

Faribault goes back to Mankato Thursday to tangle with the Mankato East Cougars.