EASTLAKE—Berkshire came up on the short end of the score at Eastlake North on Saturday but the Badgers gained some valuable confidence heading down the stretch run of the regular season.
The Badgers won the first set and third sets and held match point in the fourth before giving way to the Rangers, who won the postseason tune-up, 3-2.
“That’s why they’re on our schedule for this time of the year and why next Saturday we have Riverside,” said Berkshire coach Joni Prots about the high level of intensity the Badgers played with against a Division I team. “That’s the intent of those games.”
Berkshire opened the match with a 25-12 win. The Rangers responded with a 25-18 win in the second set and Berkshire won the third, 25-20. The Badgers then held match point in the fourth set before the Rangers rallied for a 26-24 win and scored the first seven points of the fifth set on the way to a 15-7 victory.
“I felt like we should have finished game four,” Prots said. “That’s a game we have to finish. When you have 24 and are up three or four points, you can’t let the other team come back. We had a little bit of a letdown in game five too but I thought we hustled a whole bunch today, a lot more than we sometimes down.”
Madison Chapman led the Badgers with 19 kills and 19 digs and also scored seven points with two aces. Delaney Tucek contributed with 10 kills, 15 digs and nine points and Julia Kastor finished with seven kills, seven points, two blocks and 16 digs.
Kayla Dingman added 12 points, four aces and seven digs, Olivia Freiling pitched in with nine points, two aces, a team-high 39 assists and 16 digs and Marisa Miller closed out the match with 11 digs and five points.
“We’ve been working on trying to cut down on mistakes,” Prots said. “When we do, good things happen. We just have to find a way to limit those mistakes and stop a run of points for the other team like we had to do today.”
The Badgers, who fell to 12-7 overall, travel to Kirtland on Tuesday.
