by Jim Kopel
The ranked Minneota Vikings and their high-powered offense came to the Tyler gym last Thursday. The Vikings proved that they are a force to be reckoned with as they beat the Lady Knights by scores of 25-12, 25-17 and 25-13.
“There were times we played well, but also times where we gave up points on their serve or our hitting errors,” said Coach Witte. “We just can’t do that against a quality opponent.”
Yes, the first game showed some of those mistakes. There was a stretch early in the first game where both the Lady Knights and Vikings were hitting the ball long, which gave points to the other team. Finally the Vikings took control with a run of four points. It was now 16 to 9. In that first game the home team Knights never had two consecutive points.
The Vikings took early control of the second game as they owned an 11 to 1 lead. The Knights fought back on kills by Casey Thooft and Jade Possail and an ACE serve by Taryn VanOverbeke. They got the game to 16-23 before the Vikings put it in the win column.
The third game saw another quick start by the Vikings. Another ACE by VanOverbeke saw a 4 to 8 advantage for the Vikings early. This was as close as it would get. The Vikings rattled off five straight points to win going away. “This has been a tough stretch of matches” said the coach. “We knew this coming into the season. The girls are upbeat. We will continue to improve.”
Casey Thooft was a perfect nine for nine at the serving table while VanOverbeke was seven of eight with the two aces. Jade Possail had six kills while Thooft and Sam Neyens had four apiece. Chelbi Welvaert had 12 set assists while the top diggers were Thooft, Possail and Casey Goodmund with 15, eight and seven respectively.
The Lady Knights fell to a record of 0 and 4 with the loss. However, improvement on all fronts will lead to victories in the near future.
The RTR football Knights and the MACCRAY Wolverines took to the field at Maynard last Friday in a Little Sioux battle. All the scoring was done in the second quarter as the home team recorded a 21 to 0 win.
The Wolverines received the opening kickoff and marched down the field, recording four first downs. Finally the Knight defense stepped up. Darren Feste had a nice tackle for a loss and Chad Lingen sacked the QB to give the ball to the Knights.
The Knights, behind the running of Lance Weber, got their initial first down of the game. Seven yard runs by Weber and Jason Minett recorded another first down. A roughing-the-passer penalty got another first down. The Knights were moving the ball, but were stopped on the next series of downs. Mike Kent hit a nice punt to put the Wolverines at their own 15 yard line.
A nice tackle by Alex Bakker put the home team at a third down with 11 yards to go as the first quarter ended. The second quarter was all MACCRAY. A 27-yard pass play got the Wolverines going. Soon they were in the endzone. The Knights offense didn’t do anything with their next possession, but another nice punt by Kent saw the Wolverines start at their own 17-yard line.
It took one pass play of 83 yards for the home team to score. With eight minutes left in the half MACCRAY held a 13 to 0 lead. The Wolverines would score their last TD of the game on a double reverse pass that was very well thrown. The receiver was well covered by the Knight defender. The two-point conversion made the halftime score 21 to 0. Little did we know that would be the final score.
The second half started with the Knights receiving the ball. Nothing happened on offense for either team early. Finally the Knights got something going. Weber ripped off an 18-yard run, followed by a 13-yard gallop by Minett. Being in Wolverine territory, the Knights had four tries for another first down. It didn’t happen, so the team lost the ball on downs.
The home team did move the ball on the Knights in that second half, but the Knights always showed their toughness when it counted.
MACCRAY had the advantage in total yards for the game with 419 to only 93 for the Knights. First downs also saw the Wolverines with a 16 to 6 advantage.
Lance Weber had 16 carries in the game for 57 yards while Jason Minett had nine carries for 19 yards.
On the defensive side of the ball, Minett had 11 tackles. The entire Knight defense played quite well despite the fact that MACCRAY had the edge in size and quickness.
“Yes, we might have lost the game on the scoreboard, but the kids left it on the field,” said head coach Steve Borchert. “We knew that this would be a tough one. We got some things going early, but we just couldn’t maintain things. We showed some improvement over last week even in the loss.”
This week the Knights host the Dawson-Boyd Blackjacks. It will be homecoming for the Knights. Let’s get out and support the team. DB brings a quality team to Tyler this week. Plenty of noise will help the Knights.