Girls volleyball: Short-handed Sterling falls just short against Moline

STERLING – Dealing with some illness on the team and down a couple of starters, the Sterling volleyball team showed its resolve.

The Golden Warriors competed with Moline until the end Tuesday at Musgrove Fieldhouse but fell just short in a 25-23, 26-24 Western Big 6 Conference loss.

The Golden Warriors (6-3-2, 0-2 Big 6) trailed 13-6 in the first set and 18-12 in the second set before making their runs. The team competed and kept things close despite the loss, similar to the 2-1 setback to Geneseo last week.

Sterling next travels to Quincy on Thursday.

“I think we’ve competed well,” Sterling coach Dale Dykeman said. “We’re missing a couple starters tonight due to illnesses. I thought kids stepped in, [and] we competed at an extremely high level against a team that was really good.”

Marley Sechrest led Sterling with five kills with three aces, and Nia Harris had four kills. Alivia Gibson’s second ace gave Sterling a 21-20 lead in the second set, but the Maroons (4-2, 2-0) closed things out after it was 24-all.

“All things considered, I thought the kids stepped in and did their job and played in some positions that they weren’t used to,” Dykeman said. “It’s a loss, and you hate to lose, but that’s a really good team on the other side of the net with some high-quality players that I thought we did our best against.”

Alyssa Dixon led Moline with seven kills, Bella Skeffington had five, and Maddie Determan (three aces) and LaTasia Green-Huffman each had four. Mya Johnson (two aces) led Moline with 19 assists. The Maroons tallied 10 aces in the win.

Sterling’s Delali Amankwa (one ace) led the team with 11 assists.

“I think we were in a lot of uncomfortable positions,” Amankwa said. “We were missing one of our main outside hitters, and our service got a bit scrambled up. We had some different girls coming off the bench in new positions, so I think we were just trying to work with what we have and play our hardest.”

Amankwa, a University of Wisconsin-Platteville commit, thought her team competed well.

“I think we gave it our all,” she said. “Everybody was all-in, full effort, trying to do what we could.”

The team has now gone toe-to-toe with two of the top teams in the conference and feels confident for the next time around.

“Both of the games were really close,” Amankwa said, “which gives us a lot of hope for our second shot.”

Meanwhile, they hope to simply get healthy.

“I’m sick, a lot of other girls are sick,” she said. “We have a lot of injuries.”

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