Bison girls blast Ainsworth, push Bow into final points of last set

BROKEN BOW, Neb. — Gothenburg coach Bryson Mahlberg could see it last week when his 17-win team had to fight like crazy Swedes against host McCook.

“You can see they are building something here,” he remarked following the five-set win at McCook’s “Senior Night” one week ago.

The Swedes narrowly escaped with a final 15-13 win.

Mahlberg was so impressed with Bison leaders like senior libero Bailee Fawver, who unleashed a flurry of final serves during McCook’s comeback win in their fourth set.

Plus all Bison fans know how Fawver plays all-out, diving, cover every piece of that home-courst defense.

“We really tried to keep the ball way from her,” Mahlberg said. “Obviously, that’s tough to do. She was all over the place.”

The Bison showed that same tenacity during Tuesday’s Broken Bow Triangular.

McCook swept both sets from the Ainsworth Bulldogs then pushed an always tough Broken Bow host team into three gritty-tough sets.

Coach Trevor Hoins was clearly pleased about his 12-15 squad as they build momentum for next week’s Southwest Conference tournament.

“In our game against Broken Bow we competed really well against them in the first set. We dropped it 26-24. In the second we took control of the set and were able to come away with set two,” he explained. “In the third we had control early in the set and got out to a big lead. We just couldn’t get a ball down on their side and ended up dropping the third set. We then had to come back and play Ainsworth in the second game of the night. We were able to win in two sets.”

Hoins praised several ace serves for sparking the sweep of Ainsworth.

Leaders against Broken Bow included:

KILLS: Cali Crawford 12, Abby Renner 8, Morgan Griffin 7.

ASSISTS: Karstyn Porter 23, Bailee Foster 4. BLOCKS: Morgan Griffin 2.

DIGS: Bailee Fawver 16, Porter 11, Crawford 9, Jaylea Walgren 8.

ACE SERVES: Morgan Griffin 3, Porter 2, Crawford 1, Foster 1.