Bulldogs Win In Battle of Unbeatens

September 10th, 2013

Tyler Peterson-NSO

The Bulldogs beat Northeast Range, 3 matches to 0 match, improving to 3-0 on the young season and dropping the Nighthawks to 4-1. It wasn’t an easy win for the Bulldogs as the Nighthawks never gave up and were pesky all night long. But the Bulldogs handled the adversity and prevailed with match wins of 25-23, 25-15, and 25-23 to notch their third win of the year.

Carlton got off to a hot start, tallying a run of 10-3 before Northeast Range coach had seen enough and called a timeout. The timeout didn’t phase the Bulldogs, as they continued their dominating way and led by 23-14. But then Northeast Range came running back into the game when they capitalized on some Bulldogs mistakes and made good plays to notch it at 23-23.  The Bulldogs finally prevailed after making two nice plays and taking the first match, 25-23.

In match 2, the Bulldogs continued where they left off last match and they never looked back. The Bulldogs kicked off match 2 with a 12-6 lead. The Northeast Range Nighthawks tried to make it interesting, closing the gap to 12-9, but that wasn’t enough as the Bulldogs went on to take a large lead of 20-13. With the score 23-15, sophomore Hannah Benson ended match 2 with two beautiful ace serves, giving the Bulldogs the 25-15 win.

Northeast Range started off match 3 in dominating fashion, as they grabbed a 5-0 lead to start. The Nighthawks continued their nice beginning to the match, grabbing a 14-9 lead midway through the match. But the Bulldogs never gave up as they stormed back to gain the lead at 15-14 with 3 ace serves from sophomore Amanda Groth. The Bulldogs then trailed by 22-19 late in the match, but gained back the lead at 23-22 and never surrendered it, winning the match 25-23 and improving to 3-0 on the season.

The Bulldogs were lead by junior Grace Macor who had 9 kills and 19 digs in the victory. Also for Carlton was sophomore Macy Belich who had 8 kills and 14 digs, junior Jessica Stanslaski with 7 kills and 3 blocks, and sophomore Hannah Benson and junior Brianna Walton, who each had 15 set assists.

The Nighthawks were lead by senior Katie Lenci who had 10 kills in the loss. Also in the loss for Northeast Range, junior Brielle Wills had 9 kills paired with 9 digs, junior Taneesha Durpree pitched in 6 kills and senior Signe Scholl had 28 set assists.

The Bulldogs (3-0) will be back in action Thursday, September 12th when they take on the South Ridge Panthers (2-1) in Carlton. Northeast Range (4-1) will be back on the court when they play on the road against the Mountain Iron-Buhl Rangers (4-0) on Thursday night.

Tyler Peterson can be contacted at tpeterson@northlandsportsonline.com