O-M volleyball ready to fight out of three-game skid

Orient-Macksburg volleyball looks to get back on track Thursday, Sept. 16 when the Bulldogs face a tough rough trip to Class 1A sixth-rated Ankeny Christian Academy.

The Bulldogs have faced three straight losses — 3-0 to Murray (25-10, 25-10, 25-12), 3-0 to 12th-ranked Lamoni (25-9, 25-4, 25-8) and 3-1 to Paton-Churdan (21-25, 25-21, 17-25, 21-25) — after a season opening win at home against Melcher-Dallas.

Co-head coach Bree Ross said that her team plays good defense and keeps balls alive more times than not, but when communication is good, the team plays better. The team is also weathering the storm with illnesses that are keeping them from having their typical rotation.

“We’re in a situation where we’ve gotta clean ourselves up, clean up our communication and put balls away. We’re playing good defense and playing good teams, so it’s easier to play with them, but we’re not putting the ball away efficiently and we’re not communicating like we should,” Ross said.

Senior hitter Addy Kerr leads the Bulldogs with 11 kills on the year while sophomore Kinsey Eslinger has 10. Freshman Carter Osborne is leading the team, as of Tuesday, with 10 service aces while Kerr has seven. Eslinger has 26 set assists thus far.

Sophomore Emily Campbell leads the team with two solo blocks on the year. Sophomore Kasyn Shinn and Kerr each lead the team with 30 digs.

“This last game [against Paton-Churdan] we couldn’t push through to get the last couple of points we needed to, but overall we’re stepping up, we just need to put all the pieces together,” Ross said. “We’re getting better everyday. We’ve had a lot of compliments on the girls stepping up, our attitudes and communication. We’re just going to try to keep improving those things and proving everyone in the conference wrong.”