Volleyball: Front-row dominance powers Rock Falls past Sterling in Volley for Veterans match

STERLING – The Sterling Golden Warriors and Rock Falls Rockets looked evenly matched for half of the first set, but once Claire Bickett, Emily Lego and Nicolette Udell got rolling, it was game over Thursday night at Musgrove Fieldhouse.

Rock Falls took the nonconference Volley for Veterans match 25-17, 25-17.

[ Photos from Rock Falls vs. Sterling Volley for Veterans ]

The teams raised money for the Quad Cities Honor Flight with the Rock River rivalry match, and players solicited sponsors for veterans leading up to the match. A bake sale was held, and donations were accepted at the match.

The teams went back and forth early in both sets before the Rockets (32-3) pulled away.

The Warriors (12-20-2) played the Rockets up to a 9-9 tie in the first set. From there, Rock Falls went on a seven-point run for a 16-9 lead, then extended it to 21-12 on a Bickett kill. The Rockets then won four of the next nine points to secure a first-set win. Lego had four kills, Bickett had three kills and Udell had two kills in the first set.

“I just think the atmosphere’s really intimidating, especially since we have a lot of juniors on our team, but once we settled in, I think we passed the ball really well and got comfortable, and were able to run a better offense,” Bickett said.

The Rockets jumped out to a 10-6 lead in the second set before the Warriors rallied to tie it at 13-13.

A Denali Stonitsch ace pushed Rock Falls ahead 15-13, and the momentum picked up from there. Udell hammered a kill for an 18-13 lead, Rylee Johnson spiked a kill to stretch it to 22-16, then Elizabeth Lombardo served an ace, and Bickett crushed another kill for the 24th point. Cadence Williamson knocked in the final point to take the match.

“I think it’s a great advantage,” Bickett said of the edge Rock Falls’ front row gave the team. “I think our defense just does a great job talking to us, communicating, telling us what’s open, and we’re able to hit those shots.”

Bickett finished with nine kills and five digs, and Stonitsch had 22 assists for the Rockets. Udell had six kills, Lego spiked five kills and stuffed a block, and Taylor Reyna added three kills. Carli Kobbeman chipped in 15 digs.

Kathryn Rowzee paced Sterling with five kills and one block, while Mallory Osborn added three kills.

“Rock Falls is a really good volleyball team. They have two dynamic pins. Their middles run fast and hit sharp angles. Their right sides are not much behind those,” Sterling coach Dale Dykeman said. “We tried to serve them aggressively and tried to stay aggressive on offense, so we weren’t just getting pelted or they were running their high-speed offense at us, and I think we did a pretty good job of that. But anything that we weren’t able to generate good offense on, it came back pretty fast. ... But we felt that we gave them a pretty good game tonight.”