The Miller Rustlers would be up 2-0 on the Wagner Red Raiders Thursday night in the first round of the Class A State tournament, but would have to hold on for a five set win to advance to Friday’s semifinals.
Scores of the match were 25-23, 25-18, 11-25, 22-25, 15-12. The Rustlers had big games from both Paige Werdel and Shaylee Andeberg who picked up 20 and 16 kills respectively to lead the team. Ashlyn Koupal though, would lead Wagner and the match with 21 kills on the night. Miller would lead most of the way in the first two sets before Wagner would start its comeback trail and even led early on in set five, but the Rustlers would hang on for the win. Serving would be huge in the win for Miller as Journey Palmer would finish with six of the 13 total aces for the Rustlers while Wagner would have just three. However, the size of the Red Raiders posed problems for Miller as the Red Raiders would tally 11 blocks in total.
Miller advances to Friday night’s state semifinal match at 7:45 Central Time to face the two seed Rapid City Christian who also won a five set match on Thursday.
