Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CORALVILLE – First-year City High head coach Carolyn Giese got largely what she expected in a matchup with No. 11 Linn-Mar in the finale of a Mississippi Valley Conference tripleheader at Xtream Arena in Coralville.

An exciting experience, in an impressive venue against a talented opponent.

“I think this was a really cool opportunity to play in this building and get a feel for the energy in what it’s like to be in this environment,” Giese said. “The girls were really excited and there might have been a little bit of nerves for all the teams but I think the kids really enjoyed tonight.”

Giese and the Little Hawks missed out on what they were hoping for on Tuesday – a victory.

Kate Passmore had a match-high 19 kills and teammate Madison Stroschein added 10 kills as Class 5A No. 11 Linn-Mar upended No. 13 City High 23-25, 25-22, 25-14, 26-24 in a meeting of top-15 teams.

Claire Ernst had seven of her team-high 13 kills for City High in a first-set win but Linn-Mar made the key plays late in wins in the second and fourth sets while improving to 10-5 on the season.

Emmy McComas had 10 kills for City High which dropped to 5-5 on the season.

“They definitely stepped up,” Giese said of Linn-Mar. “I think that they were ready well, they were picking up a lot of balls and we just needed to be a little bit more aggressive in our hitting but I think our girls fought as hard as they could and it just didn’t fall our way.”

City High took control of the opening set with a 5-0 run that started with back-to-back kills by senior setter Sidney Slay and gave the Little Hawks a 13-7 lead.

Linn-Mar got as close as 24-23 on a Passmore kill but the seventh kill of the set for Ernst closed out the opening-set win for City High.

Passmore had seven kills in a 25-22 Linn-Mar win in the second set, and accounted for four of the final five points for the Lions with kills as Linn-Mar evened the match at one set apiece.

Linn-Mar used a 9-0 run early in the third set to take an 11-3 lead and never trailed again in a 25-14 win.

The Lions then put the way away by scoring the final two points in a 26-24 win in the fourth set.

After City High scored three consecutive points to force a Linn-Mar timeout Stroschein gave the Lions a 25-24 lead and Passmore closed out the win with her 19^th kill.

Behind the 19 kills from Passmore Linn-Mar finished with a 61-38 edge in kills over City High.

Freshman Kaitlin Loria had five kills and Slay and freshman Hattie Galloway each had four kills for City High.

“We have the best group of girls,” Giese said. “They are very, very united as a group. There is so much positivity for each other. We are very, very connected as a group and we have some things we nee to work on technically but we are going to keep pushing and working hard and doing what we can.”

Linn-Mar       23  25  25  26

City High       25  22  14  24             

City High (Kills-Aces-Blocks)

Jordyn Kucera 0-1-0, Jessi Kucera 0-1-0, Lila Howe 0-1-0, Sidney Slay 4-2-0, Halle Larew 2-0-3, Kaitlin Loria 5-0-2, Hattie Galloway 4-0-2, Claire Ernst 13-0-0, Emmy McComas 10-2-1, Totals 38-8-7.

Assists – Sidney Slay 24, Jordyn Kucera 8

Linn-Mar (Kills-Aces-Blocks)

Emily Brunson 0-2-0, Madison Stroschein 10-0-2, Karsyn Michael 1-0-0, Gwen Gaffney 4-0-0, Kate Passmore 19-2-4, Mallory Guenther 0-1-0, Tessa Casebolt 6-2-0, Kelsey Klesner 4-0-0, Kira Klesner 7-2-0, Totals 61-9-6.

Assists – Karsyn Michael 31, Kira Klesner 8

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