Confidence Booster: Edie Hegerle helps Jays power past Midgets

Sep. 30—JAMESTOWN — Edie Hegerle has been around the game of volleyball her entire life.

Thursday night, she showed those at Jerry Meyer Arena what she could do.

Spoiler — it was a lot.

Hegerle helped Jamestown take down Dickinson 3-1 to earn its fourth-straight win of the season and improve to 8-2 in the conference standings and 15-2 overall.

The Blue Jays will be back in action on Saturday taking on Watford City at their home venue. First serve is scheduled for 2:30 p.m.

The 2022 season marks the first year Hegerle has been named to the Blue Jay varsity roster and while she might have been a smidge nervous at first, her confidence has grown by leaps and bounds from the end of August.

"Our hitters have said they like hitting off both Edie and Makenna (Nold)," JHS head coach Sara Hegerle said. "They are two different players but they are kind of becoming more alike. Kenna is defending better than she was at the beginning of the year and Edie is serving tougher.

"They complement each other really well and it makes it harder on the other team when you have two good setters."

Hegerle dished out 21 assists to the front three while Nold notched 29 in the stat books.

Her assist count was great but the stat that dropped some jaws came in the second set.

A 6-0 serving run by Hegerle did a good job of demoralizing the Dickinson defense and it helped to establish a 10-6 start to the second.

Dickinson managed to come within two points of the game leaders but some quick and decisive plays on net by the Jays extended its lead to 19-15.

Hegerle's bullet of a serve came around again and it was enough to make it the last rotation of the frame. The sophomore rifled off three aces to end it 25-15.

Hegerle ended the second frame with six aces. On the night she recorded seven.

"She's got a good serve and she had their number tonight," Coach Hegerle said. "As a young setter she doesn't always have the confidence we want her to have but she had a good warm-up and she had confidence from the moment she stepped out on the court tonight."

The sophomore's growing confidence is just a natural result of how much she plays the game.

Hegerle is thinking of participating in a winter volleyball league for a second year this winter. The sophomore plays JO volleyball in the spring and then participates in multiple volleyball camps throughout the summer.

She also has parents who have each been coaching volleyball for more than 10 years not to mention a pair of sisters who have both gone on to play collegiate-level volleyball. The entire Hegerle clan is there, ready to guide and encourage the youngest member of the family.

"I want to carry on how good my sisters were into my own games," Hegerle said. "Grace (Hegerle) and Josie (Beckman) (Hegerle) both got lots of awards and they were both very good players. I don't know if I am better than them, but I am hoping to become as good as they were."

It was pretty clear Thursday that the JHS sophomore is well on her way to continuing her family's legacy.

Right away in the first, the Midgets' offensive efforts were offset early on by the Blue Jays. Jamestown took an 18-11 lead — an advantage that stemmed from a strong defensive effort in the back half of the court.

While the Jays' defense fed into a dynamic offensive effort, the scrappy defensive specialists also helped to mute any retaliation from Dickinson's star hitter, Caton Pearcy.

Pearcy ended the night with 14 kills while Jenna Decker was the Midgets' leading attacker with 15. On the flip side, the Jays' defense, paced by Aspyn Peterson, produced 73 digs.

"Our passing and serving were really good tonight," Coach Hegerle said. "People don't recognize how important passing is. It makes our volleyball much better."

The Jays rode its lead the rest of the way and Nold ended it with an ace.

After the Blue Jays cleaned up in the second to pull ahead 2-0, things got a little dicey for the game leaders.

Blocks from Dickinson's front three gave the Midgets their first substantial lead of the night in the third set. Attacks into the tape and missed serves by the Jays didn't help their cause and Dickinson took advantage establishing a 21-15 lead.

The Midgets were not to knocked off but instead they took advantage of the Blue Jay mistakes and their own firepower to earn a third set, 25-19 win.

It was a horserace the opening nine points in the fourth with neither team establishing more than a two-point lead.

A couple of well-placed kills by Haylie Hakanson and Nold changed the name of that tune.

Jamestown soon found itself up 18-11 and wouldn't be dissuaded despite a 7-1 run late in the game that made it 24-22 Blue Jays.

A final kill from Bernadette Newman secured the Jays' fourth-straight victory and first home court win since they played Bismarck Century on Sept. 13.

Newman led the Jays at the net with 18 kills while Hakanson put her name on 15.

"Our whole team is really good and played together tonight," Hegerle said. "We're not going to take anyone lightly — we're going to work for it and get ready for Saturday."

Jamestown 3, Dickinson 1

DHS 19 15 25 22

JHS 25 25 19 25

Dickinson — Kills: Decker 15, Pearcy 14, Sadie Stevenson 4, Cecilla Homiston 2, Jenna Nelson 2, Jazmin Barry 1. Assists: Homiston 34, Kendra King 1, Stevenson 1. Digs: Baylee Berg 27, Pearcy 21, Decker 18, Homiston 7, Stevenson 5, Braelynn Farnsworth 3, King 1, Malva Kuehl 1, Alyssa Curtis 1. Aces: Decker 1. Blocks: Barry 3, Stevenson 1, Homiston 1, Pearcy 1, Decker 1.

Jamestown — Kills: Newman 18, Hakanson 15, Nold 7, Kinley Anderson 5, Leah Trumbauer 4, Benet Fronk 3. Assists: Nold 29, Hegerle 21. Digs: Peterson 19, Newman 18, Nold 13, Hegerle 8, Rylee Joseph 5, Trumbauer 3, Anderson 2, Breanna Oettle 2, Fronk 2, Hakanson 1. Aces: Hegerle 7, Nold 3, Newman 1. Blocks: Nold 2, Anderson 2, Newman 1.

Records: Dickinson 7-9 overall 4-5 WDA; Jamestown 15-2, 8-2