Lady Vikings breeze by St. Regis in sweep

CHARLO — The Lady Vikings made short work of St. Regis last Thursday at home, sweeping the Tigers in three games 25-12, 25-5 and 25-7.

CHARLO — The Lady Vikings made short work of St. Regis last Thursday at home, sweeping the Tigers in three games 25-12, 25-5 and 25-7.

St. Regis was without some key starters due to injury, making it a fairly easy win for a Charlo team that has really started to click over the past few weeks.

The Lady Vikings’ servers did well in hitting their marks, racking up 24 aces in the process.

Haley Berkram was responsible for 10 of those aces, the most of any Charlo player.

She also led the way in assists on the night, posting seven in the match.

Meanwhile, Aspen Runkel, Laura Reich and Sienna Brown were the team’s top hitters in the match.

Runkel came away with a team-high five kills on the night, while Reich and Brown produced four apiece. The team had 19 kills in all for the match.

Charlo head coach Sheryl kain said both Runkel and Brown have come out of their shells with their hitting recently.

“They’re actually realizing that they can hit the ball and that it’s okay to go up and hit it hard,” Kain said. “They have stepped up quite a bit in the hitting department.”

Derika Stipe paced the team with four digs against the Tigers. The Lady Vikings had 16 digs on the night.

The match was also a chance for Kain to play her bench players, giving them some essential experience to go off of down the line.

“Come tournament time you want to be prepared that if something does happen, they’re not going in nervous and having never been on the floor,” Kain said. “It’s kind of good to know that you have somebody who can step in and do the job [when needed].”

Early on in the season, the Lady Vikings struggled to gel as a team, but Kain has liked what she has seen from her players over the last few weeks in terms of teamwork.

“Team-wise, they’re getting it and they’re doing really well,” Kain said. “Communication is great. They’re not peaking, which is good because you don’t want to peak now, but they’re definitely playing a lot better than they were at the beginning of the season.”

This new-found team chemistry has helped the Lady Vikings to an impressive 11-3 overall record and 7-1 conference mark,

However, Kain admits her players still have some polishing up to do before they can reach their full potential.

“There’s always just the little things where you can tell they’re losing concentration or focus,” Kain said.

The regular season is coming down the home stretch with the District Tournament right around the corner and, with the unpredictable conference play this year, Kain doesn’t know what to expect for the post-season.

“You never know what’s going to happen for conference,” Kain said. “It will be interesting to see when districts come around, who is in what position based on how schools are working out.”