Neligh-Oakdale Volleyball Opens Season At 2-0

With lots of new faces, Neligh-Oakdale opened up its volleyball season with a pair of victories on the road Thursday night.

The Warriors defeated Boyd County 2-1 before sweeping Santee 2-0. 

"It’s a great feeling to have these first games under our belt,” coach Hannah Hoefer said. “It gives us a great starting point, and the girls had to work hard for both wins tonight.”
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Neligh-Oakdale attacked Boyd County early and nearly pulled off the two-set sweep but allowed the Spartans to come back and take the second. The third set was all Warriors.

Hoefer rotated all nine varsity players in as the Warriors used a balanced attack with Jaclynn Hixson and Shelby Pitzer each knocking down six kills. Freshman Trinity Kurpqeweit added five more for a 1-2-3 punch at the net. Haley Kerkman put up 15 set assists and had five aces, and Kristen Snodgrass picked up 21 digs in the win. Bailey Frey had three kills and three digs.

“All nine of them know their spot and know their role. They have each other’s backs,” Hoefer said. “We’ve switched a few things up with serves and that type of thing, so it was good.”

After a big win to start the season, the Warriors struggled to get into a groove against Santee in the nightcap. Serving woes plagued the team, forcing Neligh-Oakdale to dig deep mentally. Kerkman had three aces while Snodgrass had eight digs. Pitzer put down four kills and had four digs while Paige Furstenau added another four digs. 

“We were down six, seven, eight points, and when we took a timeout, we said, ‘You guys are a competitive group and you are too competitive to lose this set.' It was the mindset. It was the two percent of what we were doing wrong," Hoefer said. “They battled back as a team. There was no negativity on the court, so I saw a lot of positives come out of this first night of games. We just need to continue building.”

Neligh-Oakdale will have a big homecoming week as they host Elkhorn Valley on Tuesday, travel to the Fullerton Triangular on Thursday and host Clearwater-Orchard on Friday.

Neligh-Oakdale 25 24 25
Boyd County 14 26 16
Neligh-Oakdale: Kristen Snodgrass 21d; Jordan Neely 4d; Jaclynn Hixson 6k, 1d, 1sa; Haley Kerkman 3d, 15sa, 5a; Shelby Pitzer 6k, 6d, 3a; Amanda Dietz 1k, 1b, 3d; Bailey Frey 3k, 1b, 3d, 2; Trinity Kurpqeweit 5k, 2d, 4a; Paige Furstenau 1k, 4d, 1a.

​​Neligh-Oakdale 25 29
Santee 19 27
Neligh-Oakdale: Kristen Snodgrass 8d, 1sa, 1k; Jordan Neely 1d; Jaclynn Hixson 1k, 1b; Haley Kerkman 3d, 8sa, 2k, 3a; Shelby Pitzer 4d, 4k, 1a; Amanda Dietz 1d, 4k; Bailey Frey 2k; Trinity Kurpqeweit 2d, 3k; Paige Furstenau 4d.

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