Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – After watching her team go 4-1 at a season-opening tournament at Iowa City Regina last month West Branch coach Trystin Shawver saw a need for improved consistency.

The Bears took a big step forward in the consistency department in their return to Regina on Tuesday.

West Branch controlled the match from the outset on its way to a 25-16, 25-16, 25-18 sweep of Regina in a River Valley Conference South Division contest in Iowa City.

“We are definitely making progress with our consistency but that is still our biggest focus,” Shawver said. “I think it was better tonight but we can always improve.”

West Branch didn’t trail in either of the final two sets on Tuesday while improving to 6-1 on the season and 2-0 in RVC play.

While the Bears put together stretches of consistent play Regina struggled to string together similar stints while dropping to 4-4 on the year and 1-2 in conference play.

“We saw the team that we know we can be for about eight points at the beginning of the match and eight points at the end,” Regina coach Brandon Mills said. “That was the extent of our stretches tonight unfortunately.”

Regina played its best volleyball to open the match, using a 5-0 burst to take an early 7-3 lead and held an 8-5 advantage after a Lily Simpson kill.

West Branch responded with an 8-0 run and scored 12 of the next 13 points to take control of the opening set.

Senior middle Delaynie Luneckas had a pair of kills and a resounding ace block during the 12-1 run that gave the Bears a lead that would never shrink under six.

“I thought we were more consistent on our attacks,” Luneckas said. “Our first set we were very consistent with our kills and were very efficient with those.”

West Branch would trail again.

The Bears bolted to a 10-3 lead early in the second set on their way to a 25-16 win and led 11-5 early in the third set.

West Branch got big offensive efforts from senior Lexi Klinkkammer, junior Iva Senio and Luneckas while finishing with a 31-21 edge in kills.

“Coach talks about consistency every day,” Senio said. “That is one of the most important things that we need to get is consistency in passing, serving, setting, hitting. That will win us games.”

Klinkkammer led West Branch with 10 kills but had plenty of help on Tuesday as Senio added nine and Luneckas had eight.

Those three players all had at least two kills in each set as solid play by the West Branch back row helped setters Ava Finley and Kylie Pickett spread the ball around offensively.

“We were really good at lengthening the rallies,” Senio said. “We were getting balls in a place where they could score points and our passers were amazing tonight.”

Senio added five ace serves as West Branch finished with 11 aces to just four for Regina.

When it comes to consistency, the service line was an area where the Bears say they took a step forward on Tuesday.

“I think we super consistent tonight especially with our serving,” Senio said. “I think we really excelled in that area today. We definitely have improved from where we were a few weeks ago.”

Regina tied the third set at 12 but West Branch scored the next for points, all coming on kills by Luneckas and Senio.

“Consistency is a huge thing for us but we also talk about having efficient communication,” Luneckas said. “That’s a really big thing for us is just our communication and I think that was better today.”

Lily Simpson led Regina with 10 kills, an ace serve and a pair of blocks while Caitlin Martin had four kills and Alli Dillon added three.

Regina will host Anamosa (5-8) on Thursday before participating in the Marion tournament on Saturday.

“I told the girls the best thing about this tonight is we have a lot of chances to wash that taste out of mouth,” Mills said. “We have Anamosa coming here on Thursday and a long tournament on Saturday so we are excited for that.”

West Branch              25  25  25

Regina                           16  16  18

Regina (Kills-aces-blocks)

Caitlin Martin 4-0-0, Sydney Wagner 1-1-0, Peyton Naeve 1-1-0, Lily Simpson 10-1-2, Alli Dillon 3-0-0, Hope Simpson 2-1-0, Totals 21-4-2.

Assists – Peyton Naeve 13, Alli Dillon 1, Hope Simpson 1

West Branch (Kills-aces-blocks)

Iva Senio 9-5-0, Alex Poppen 0-1-0, Alyse Klinkkammer 0-2-0, Sophia Kouba 1-0-0, Lexi Klinkkammer 10-0-0, Delaynie Luneckas 8-1-0, JaLynn Falco 2-0-0, Kya Montgomery 0-1-0, Natalie Essington 0-1-0, Totals 31-11-3.

Assists – Ava Finley 14, Kylie Pickett 10

Did you enjoy this subscription free article? Help keep Your Prep Sports free by donating.