GODDARD — Great Bend High School’s volleyball team opened its season Tuesday night at the Goddard Eisenhower triangular.
Great Bend split its matches, losing in three sets to Goddard Eisenhower before blanking Arkansas City.
The Lady Panthers won the first set of the match with Goddard Ike, 25-20, but the host school rallied for 25-20 and 25-17 wins in the second and third sets to capture the match.
“The first set we jumped out with a large lead off of Brandi Schneider’s serving,” Great Bend head coach Kelsey Perry said. “She served eight in a row and that gave us a lot of momentum. Our entire team served extremely well and (was) aggressive the first game.
“This was a big reason we were successful.”
GBHS experienced some inconsistency in the second and third sets.
“The second and third sets, we fell in some holes on a few serve-receives and couldn’t get back on top,” Perry said. “We struggled a bit connecting with our setter and that is not unusual for the first match of the year.
“We felt we played well in spurts and that Goddard had a bit of a boost since they had played six matches on (the previous) Saturday.”
The Lady Panthers bounced back strong to sweep aside Ark City, 25-20 and 25-16, leveling their record at 1-1.
“Both matches we served well, passed well and attacked very well,” Perry said. “We played with a lot of confidence and that was huge in all parts of our game. Tarynn Stueder served five consecutive aces to finish the match with seven total. She was a big spark for us along with Brandi and Liz (Kutina) serving aggressively.
“Katelyn Henning had a terrific day in the libero position. Katelyn has the most varsity experience and she really stepped up and led the team. We used the second set to give Rachel Harris a bit of a rest with a sore shoulder and that was a good opportunity to get some younger girls on the court.
For our first night out, with a prodominently new team, we were very pleased. We know things we need to work on, but we also saw things that we have worked very hard to improve on throughout the offseason and that is always exciting to see payoff.”
                                                                                                                                                     — Mack McClure

Goddard Eisenhower 2, Great Bend 1
(20-25, 25-20, 25-17)
GBHS statistics
    Tarynn Stueder — 3 aces, 14 assists, 7 digs
    Rachel Harris — 2 kills, 10 digs
    Brandi Schneider — 1 ace, 4 kills
    Liz Kutina — 6 kills, 4 blocks, 2 stuff blocks
    Kaylie Doll — 2 blocks, 1 stuff block, 2 assists, 4 digs
    Kelsie Doll — 7 digs
    Katelyn Henning — 1 ace, 18 digs
    Brenna Haines — 6 kills, 6 blocks, 3 stuff blocks

GBHS 2, Arkansas City 0
(25-20, 25-16)
GBHS statistics
    Tarynn Stueder — 7 aces, 3 kills, 14 assists, 4 digs
    Rachel Harris — 2 kills, 2 digs
    Brandi Schneider — 3 aces, 4 kills, 3 digs
    Liz Kutina — 3 aces, 5 kills, 4 blocks, 2 digs
    Katelyn Henning — 1 kill, 1 assists, 4 digs
    Brenna Haines — 2 block stuffs, 1 dig
    Kelsey Crosby — 4 blocks, 2 stuff blocks