UNION CITY – The Lady Blackhawks defeated Bradford in straight sets 29-27, 25-19 and 27-25 for a senior night win.
Mississinawa trailed in the first set and then took a lead 24-21 lead only to see the Railroaders score 3 straight to tie the game at 24 and the battle was on. The Hawks would pull out the first game thriller 29-27.
The second set saw a number of lead changes and stayed tight until Mylie Austerman got on a roll from the service line to help the Hawks pull away late serving 7 straight points for a 25-19 win.
Bradford though wouldn’t quit and battled back after being down in the 3rd set and tied the score at 24 sending the third set into overtime as well. Mississinawa would finally close out that set and the match with a 27-25 win.
“You know, it’s senior night, so it’s an emotional night for our seniors but they really stepped up tonight. Gretchen Rodeheffer, Ava Hummel, Ella Godfrey really stepped up, and Jailyn Gahret saw action as well,” Mississinawa coach Taylor Rawlings said.
“Freshman Mylie Austerman, she came up big for us tonight. Serves were big in that second game. You know, and we pulled us together as a team, so I’m really proud of all of them for that,” Rawlings added.
Ava Hummel led the Hawks with 19 assists and 7 digs. Ella Livingston had 14 assists and 11 digs. Gretchen Rodeheffer downed 18 kills and 10 digs.
Mississinawa improves to 8-10 overall on the year and is 4-5 in the WOAC and they will Thursday at Tri-County North.
After the game coach Rawlings talked about her team starting to find their groove with her seniors and youngers players starting to gain confidence.
“I think we’re finally finding our groove now. I think we started off a little slow and had some tougher conference teams in the beginning half of our season, and now we finally got things rolling as we look into tournament time.
“We tend to play like a roller coaster, but our focus is better, and we are doing a better job of maintaining our momentum bolstered by our seniors. They played on our district championship team last year and they know what it takes to win and we are leaning on that leadership and experience to help push our team as we head into the tournament,” Rawlings concluded.
