The JV volleyball team beat their biggest competition on Tuesday night. It was a back-and-forth battle between FHC and Lowell throughout the evening. Central won the first set, lost the second, then won the third. The amount of intensity and energy grew as the game went on, as the Rangers had their eyes on beating Lowell. This drove them to play as hard as they could by attacking the ball well and keeping it off of the ground. According to head coach Natialie Roelfzema, the team has been preparing to beat Lowell for a couple of weeks and they deserved this win.

“We’ve been preparing for Lowell for the past two weeks because this is a team that they [the team] felt like they could beat,” Roelfzema said. “I believed that they could beat them, but they needed to believe it themselves.”

The Rangers had a bit of a slow start in the first match, but the girls had to find their groove first. To start the set off on a high-note, Freshman Tatum Otolski makes an attempted attack and succeeds by making it through the block. Followed by Tatum’s hit, sophomore Ellie Ingraham put up a good block for the Ranger defense. FHC continued to add points to the board throughout the set and won it 25-17.

The second set was another slow start for the Lady Rangers, but when they got into it, the Rangers kept up with Lowell for some time. Sophomore Lauren Schofield had an incredible save when the ball was headed out and she raced to save the ball, Lauren got there in time and passed the ball over the net. Soon after that, there was a discrepancy over a call made by the refs; did the ball touch the antenna before going over the net? The refs called in favor of Lowell, which meant that the ball seemingly touched the antenna.

After a long battle, Coach Roelfzema called a timeout in hopes of reassuring her team that they were playing very well. However, when they went back into the game, the Red Arrows came back stronger and played harder. Lowell ended up the winner of the second set 25-14, the very last play was an ACE served by the Red Arrows.

The third and final set would determine the winner of the night. Communication was a key characteristic in how the team played.

“I think that our communication was really on top of it,” said Ellie.

Megan also thinks that the communication was better tonight.

“I think we’ve gotten a lot better at communicating with each other,” Megan said.

Due to the communication, the team was able to motivate one another, everyone in the stands could see that. This helped the team to keep up the intensity of the game. The offense in this set was on fire, Lauren was set up by sophomore Megan Raisch and then went to attack right down the line, that is something not many volleyball players can do. Lauren’s attack hit exactly on the line and Lowell tried to argue it, but the refs gave gifted the point to FHC.

The Red Arrows called a timeout in an attempt to pick it up and pull ahead of the Rangers at 10-6. Lowell got back into the game hoping to get some points, but had to call yet another timeout soon after, the score being 13-8. All the while, FHC did not let these timeouts get to them, they came back onto the court with energy that was through the roof. Lowell picked it up again, tying the score 14-14. FHC and Lowell volley the ball back and forth until the Rangers find the opportunity to attack, and they do. The Rangers went in and scored one more point making the final score 16-14.

FHC has now won and lost against Lowell, coach Roelfzema is very proud.

“I feel phenomenal with the way that the girls played tonight,” said Roelfzema. “I really feel like they finally came together as a team. They took what we incorporated in practice and showed it on the court tonight.”