At the mid-season point, the Wolfpack volleyball ladies were 2-5 on the season with plenty of difficult competition ahead. Election day pushed their normal Tuesday night game to Wednesday which meant back to back nights for the ladies.

First up was White Bear Lake. The first set was won by Park 25-20. The girls played really well and did a great job keeping the Tigers off balance the entire set. The second set White Bear reversed the roles and kept Park off their game. White Bear won that set 25-15. The third set park was the victor 25-22. Both teams had solid defensive plays to extend the back and forth set.

The fourth set Park was on the verge of closing out the night, but White Bear mounted a strong comeback to take the set 26-24. The final set of the night had Park start out strong, the had a sold lead, 4-0, then 4-1 then 5-1, but the Tigers roared back to close the set and the match 15-12.

After the game we spoke with Natalia Ehnstrom, Ehnstrom is the team Libero, a position that has different substitution and positional differences than the rest of the team. What was different on the court for the White Bear Game? Ehnstrom explained, “[The feeling on the court was] really different because we started a new rotation tonight. A lot of different players [together]. It was a really weird lineup for everyone to get used to and everyone just went with it on the fly. It ended up working great for us.”

Head Coach Kristina Jameson was quick to point out how proud she was of her team. “I’m over the moon proud of how they played tonight.”

Jameson had been working with the girls to use more of the court for the sets. Work pin to pin and set some shots more outside. “#23, Katrina did exactly what I asked of her, tonight she was spot on. Her sets really allowed our hitters to swing hard,” Jameson said. “All the things we are working on in practice is translating to games.”

Park is a very young team with five sophomores playing consistently and they are fun to watch.

Thursday, they played host to the 7-1 Stillwater Ponies. Stillwater’s only loss on the season came at the start of the year against still undefeated Eastview, so Coach Jameson knows it will be a tough meeting, “Stillwater is a very good defensive team like us. They don’t make a lot of mistakes, so we have to really earn our points against Stillwater.”

She was right. The meeting against Stillwater on Thursday turned out to be a 3-0 loss. The first set was 25-12, the second set was 25-11. The third set Park kept pace with the Ponies but still fell 25-23.

The Wolfpack will host East Ridge on Monday night, November ninth, travel to Cretin-Derham Hall on November 12th, host Woodbury November 17th and close out the regular season November 19th at Forest Lake.