Comets sweep Vikings 3-0 in NEIC volleyball match

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

DECORAH — Down 2-0 while hosting their volleyball “Senior Night” against Charles City, the Decorah Vikings were bidding to turn Thursday’s match around while taking a 13-7 lead in the third set.

Then Comet sophomore Keely Anderegg stepped to the service line.

The Vikings may have dodged a bullet at the start of the set when Charles City’s most prolific “ace” server hit her first offering into the net.

But when Anderegg got the opportunity to serve again in the set, she proceeded to slap in 11-straight service points while giving the Comets an 18-13 lead.

As was the case in the previous sets with the Comets winning 25-19 and 25-20 in order, the Vikings were stymied by Anderegg’s knuckleball-movement serves — as well as by a few “wheel route” kills by senior Keely Collins when she loops around setter Sophia Parrott for unreturnable hits on the right side of the net — enabling Charles City to complete the sweep with a 25-15 third-set win.

The Comets, still sitting at No. 15 for the third straight week amid the Class 4A volleyball rankings, improved to 18-4 overall and 3-1 in the Northeast Iowa Conference. They only trail New Hampton in league standings with the Chickasaws owning a 4-0 league mark through this week.

Charles City’s lone NEIC loss was to New Hampton — a 3-2 setback at home after the Comets went up 2-0 against Chickasaws, who are currently ranked No. 6 among Class 3A teams.

Decorah fell to 12-8 and 1-4.

Charles City will be back in action Monday (Oct. 2) when it hosts NEIC rival Crestwood. The match against the Cadets was supposed to be this past Tuesday but was rescheduled due to lack of available officials.

Thursday’s Charles City-at-Decorah match was originally scheduled for next Tuesday, but it got moved up due to lack of officials for next week.