Warriors felled by Warhawks in VB home opener

By John Burbridge sports@charlescitypress.com

ROCKFORD — Momentum takes on an abstract form within a volleyball match.

Once you try to define it, or feel confident to state that it has traversed from one team to another, your lack of prescience will likely be exposed.

While hosting Top of Iowa-East rival West Fork in their first home volleyball match of the season on Tuesday, the Rockford Warriors seemed to have seized the “momentum” for good.

With the match tied at one set apiece, the Warriors rallied from a 15-8 deficit in the third set to go up 17-16 on an impressive full-arm-swinging kill by senior middle hitter Jamie Schuster.

The Warhawks promptly called a timeout, but what good would that do? The Warriors’ frontline consisting of Schuster and junior Kayla Carroll appeared to have found a rhythm like home run hitters in a groove and Warhawks seemed in danger of being rocked out of Rockford’s gym.

But then West Fork finished the set on a 9-2 run, then went on to take a 17-3 lead in the fourth set on Kylie Laudner’s ace before winning it 25-9 for the match victory.

For Rockford, it was its first setback of the season after starting out 2-0 on the road. The Warriors are now 2-1 and 1-1 in the TOIE. West Fork is 2-0 and 1-0.

Rockford got off to a great start thanks to four aces served by Sierra Kuhlers to help put the home team up 6-2 in the first set. But the Warhawks eventually caught the Warriors at 17 then took a 24-22 lead on Emily Caspars’s kill before a service error by Rockford ended the set at 25-23.

A series of kills by Carroll, one of which was set up by a blind-side assist by Mackenzie LaCoste helped the Warriors finish off the second set at 25-21.

Rockford won’t be back in action until after Labor Day when it travels to Northwood-Kensett on Sept. 4.