Raiders sweep Fond du Lac

Head coach Jane Peterson has been waiting for the Central Lakes College Raiders to have a dominant performance like Saturday.

After an exhausting five-game match on Friday night, Central Lakes dominated Fond du Lac by scores of 25-14, 25-12, and 25-8. In doing so, they raised their overall season record to 8-5, and their division record to 4-2.

"I was glad that we could dominate a team," Peterson said. "We haven't done that before against some other teams that I thought we should have dominated."

The Raiders started out the first game with a 10-3 lead, the second one 11-3 and 12-2 in the final. Peterson said early leads allow teams to jump into an attacking frame of mind.

"That hasn't happened to us before that we have been ahead that early," Peterson added. "We talked before the game about when we are ahead like that we can play more aggressively and confidently. When we let the other team get ahead, we make them better which is what happened (Friday). I thought we served pretty well and passing is one of their weaknesses so that's how the scores got like that."

In Friday night's matchup against Itasca, the Raiders had to rely on their passing game more as was evidenced by the 44 set assists from freshman Rachel Pfeffer. In Saturday's matchup, CLC's serving was improved, which resulted in just 19 set assists from Pfeffer.

"We came out really strong today. I thought after last night we were kind of down and coming off that win we just felt like we wanted to come out strong and get it over with early so that's what we did," said Pfeffer. "Last night our passing wasn't as good as it was today. But, I did my job and I had been out for a week so it was nice to be back."

Freshman Eric Feldewerd led the Raiders with seven kills. She was followed by Tika Klauck and Kaitlyn Roerick who had six kills each. Pfeffer also had six aces. Katie Amundson tallied four and Kayla Atkinson and Krystle Hamilton each had two.

"We always have good energy," Peterson said. "It is controlling the energy that is our problem sometimes. Last night was so grueling and difficult. We made it that way for ourselves. But the other team was better then our matchup today. But I wasn't surprised about our energy at all," she said.

Fond du Lac 14 12 8

Central Lakes 25 25 25

Central Lakes statistics

Kayla Atkinson 2 ace serves, 2 digs

Rachel Pfeffer 2 kills, 19 set assists, 6 ace serves, 8 digs

Erica Feldewerd 7 kills, 1 set assist, 1 ace serve, 8 digs

Katie Amundson 4 ace serves, 5 digs

Elora Meisner 2 kills, 1 digs

Jenna Terhaar 2 kills, 2 digs

Tika Klauck 6 kills, 5 digs

Kirstie Grill 4 kills, 1 dig

Christine Malm 9 digs

Krystle Hamilton 2 ace serves, 6 kills

Kaitlyn Roerick 6 kills, 1 set assist, 1 dig

Division: CLC 4-2. Overall: CLC 8-5. Next: Central Lakes hosts Rainy River 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.