Justesen’s 18 Kills Leads Elmwood-Murdock to Sweep of Mead

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MURDOCK – There is a lot more to the Elmwood-Murdock volleyball team than just 5-foot-9 senior outside hitter Hanna Justesen. Both the Knights’ depth and the George Washington recruit were on full display Thursday night against Mead.

Justesen had a match-high 18 kills and three of her teammates added six or more as the Knights, ranked #6 in Class C-2, rolled to a 25-16, 25-7, 25-14 win over Class D-1 #9 Mead. The win improved Elmwood-Murdock to 16-2 on the season while the Raiders fell to 10-6 with the loss.

Elmwood-Murdock’s back-row play and passing kept the Knights in system most of the night. Early on in the match, though, Mead gave Elmwood-Murdock all it wanted and held a 10-8 lead. The Knights, however, got kills from Kara Zimmerman and Justesen to tie the score and an ace serve from Jenna Meyer gave Elmwood-Murdock the lead for good at 11-10.

Mead got within 13-11 on a kill by Shelby Kuhr a little later in the first set and trailed just 15-13 after a kill by Haley Konecky and an Elmwood-Murdock hitting error. The Raiders, though, simply didn’t have an answer for Elmwood-Murdock’s array of hitters as the Knights closed the set on a 10-3 run.

The second set was completely dominated by Elmwood-Murdock as Justesen recorded more kills – eight – than Mead got points – seven – in the set.

A kill by Mead’s Kuhr, sandwiched between two ace serves from Lindsey Mayer, got the Raiders out to a 3-0 lead in the third set, but it was short-lived as Elmwood-Murdock scored the next eight points and never led by less than four points the rest of the way.

Class C-2 #6 Elmwood-Murdock def. Class D-1 #9 Mead 25-16, 25-7, 25-14.

Mead (kills-ace serves-blocks)

Lindsey Mayer 0-3-0, June Johnson 1-0-0, Jayden Haag 4-0-1, Hana Mayfield 0-1-0, Margaret Johnson 2-0-0, Shelby Kuhr 2-0-0, Haley Konecky 5-0-0.

Elmwood-Murdock (kills-ace serves-blocks)

Abby Meyer 6-0-0, Brenna Backmeyer 0-4-0, Kara Zimmerman 1-0-0, Hanna Justesen 18-0-2, Jenna Meyer 0-1-0, Taylor Lindburg 6-0-2, Whitney Koehn 8-0-0, Sheridan Spohr 1-1-0.

Assists: Mead 12 (Mayer 10, Konecky 1, Delaney Vaccaro 1). Elmwood-Murdock 34 (Backemeyer 19, Spohr 15).