Sophomore middle blocker Kylie Stritenberger dominated visiting Desert Pines at the net with 13 kills to help the Pahrump Valley High School volleyball team to victory Monday.
The Trojans easily defeated the Jaguars (2-11 overall, 1-6 Sunset League) three sets to zero, (25-11, 25-18 and 25-11).
Stritenberger had some help from junior setter Jackie Stobbe, who had 16 assists and served up 14 aces.
Although Stritenberger dominated this game, her coach, Jill Harris, said she has even had better games.
“When you get her fired up, her blocking is better,” Harris said. “She went up against a girl at Basic, who nobody could touch and she blocked her. She is a great blocker.”
The Trojans (11-15, 7-0) remain undefeated in league. The team was away at Mojave last Tuesday, winning against the Rattlers, three sets to two.
Harris said her team got a lot of valuable playing time in this game.
“We got everyone in to play tonight,” the coach said. “It was one of those games we were able to play everyone fairly evenly. We didn’t execute as well as we wanted to but we had a really long weekend.”
The team started well against Desert Pines with an 8-0 start in the first set and really never let the Jaguars come back. The second set started like the first with the Trojans taking a 6-0 lead but the girls let the Jaguars come back and had to fight them off at the end.
In the third set, Desert Pines took a brief lead, 2-0, but that didn’t last long. Pahrump retook the lead at 3-2 and slowly built the lead to a 10-5 lead and never looked back.
Tournament at Basic
The coach talked about the team’s performance at the Basic High School tournament on Friday and Saturday. Basic High School never reported the results.
“I don’t think we played as well on Friday at all,” the coach said. “We finished fourth in the tournament.”
Showdown between the two top teams
The team plays a tough Cheyenne (20-9, 7-0) team on the road on Wednesday and then comes home on Oct. 23 to play them again. Cheyenne is also undefeated in league. They play them so close together because Clark County had canceled the game because of the shooting in Las Vegas.
“We are ready for Cheyenne,” Harris said. “But we need to practice. I would tell our team that we have to have a good practice so we can come up strong against Cheyenne.”
Pahrump travels to Cheyenne today for a 6 p.m. game and then hosts Western at 6 p.m. on Oct. 24.
Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com