Making a statement

A kill by New Hampton’s Maddi Moorman went down hard in set three against Charles City Tuesday night to give the NH girls a 21-11 lead. A short time later Moorman scored again, this time it was more of a push, but it still gave the Chickasaws another point.
“Hitting is not the only option,” said Moorman after the New Hampton 3-1 win over the Comets. 
But she admits hitting the ball as hard as she can is the more satisfying option.
“This was a pretty intense match,” said the senior. “It was a fun game to play, we were talking, being aggressive and cheering and those are all important. Charles City, they’re not a bad team at all but we were able to adjust to their spots.”
In what is turning out to be a year of firsts for coach Jess Geerts, New Hampton won over Charles City for the first time in Geerts’ 13 years, but it’s been longer than that, over 20 years since that task was accomplished.
“Our girls just have these goals and they want to get them,” said Geerts. “Charles City blocked us a couple of time, they have some big middles that are always there. Then they started dumping into our middle.”
When Ashlynn Tank came to the serving line in set one, New Hampton held a precarious 12-9 lead, but Tank served a 6-0 run — which included a pair of aces — on the way to a 25-16 win. For the night Tank was 25-for-25 serving.
The Chickasaws were down 13-7 in game two and spent most of the set playing catch-up. 
They nearly did it, too. A kill by Rachel Rinken made it 21-19, one by Tank and it was 21-20 and a Charles City error tied the score at 21. 
The rest of the story may be found in the Sept. 7 Tribune.