What we've learned so far about Watertown High School's volleyball team

Never mind the headline, it might not make much sense when talking about where Watertown High School's volleyball team stands with about half of their matches completed for the 2022 season.

The Arrows improved to 7-5 with an exciting 3-2 Eastern South Dakota Conference victory over Brandon Valley Thursday night in the Civic Arena.

As the first-month mark of the season nears, Watertown has played about half of the regular-season matches on the schedule. The season, however, has a little more than two months remaining.

Here's what we've learned so far for the Arrows:

Thursday's home win for the Arrows

Before we delve into what we've learned, let's recap Thursday's win.

Emily Tisher's 17 kills and 19 digs helped the Arrows prevail 25-17, 17-25, 28-26, 22-25 and 15-9.

Kendall Paulson went 16-17 serving and added 10 kills and 17 digs. Grace Corey converted 23 of 25 serves with three aces, 29 assists and 17 digs. Carter Jurrens contributed eight kills, Maddy Rohde 16 digs and Emery Thury four kills, one solo block and one block assists.

"I thought the girls played really well," said Watertown head coach Rosemary Bellum. "We had the Set 2 slump trying not to play Miranda Falconer with a thumb injury. I just thought we got out of sorts with our rotation and we had to go back."

Mya Hejl led the Lynx (2-7) with 15 kills. Jayaunna Stroh followed with eight, Kennedy Keiper six and Josey Wickersham five.

Watertown travels to Mitchell for another ESD match on Thursday.

The schedule does make a difference

Watertown is a young team with a group of talented juniors and sophomores, and only two seniors (Paulson and Rohde).

Thursday's win over Brandon Valley was Watertown's second this fall over the Lynx, but neither match was one-sided. The combined record of the teams the Arrows have beaten this season is currently 18-48.

But, check this, the record of the five teams the Arrows have lost to is currently 39-3. That includes No. 1 Class AA Sioux Falls O'Gorman (4-0), No. 1 Class A Sioux Falls Christian (9-0), No. 3 Class AA Pierre (8-1) and No. 5 Class AA Huron (8-1) as well as Marshall, which is 10-1 and ranked No. 1 in its class in Minnesota.

There's no doubt, however, that the fate of the Arrows is likely going to come down to how well they play against good teams.

"That's where I was disappointed in the Huron game. We came out strong in the first set. They did the same thing in the second set and rode the momentum train after that," said Bellum.

"Brandon Valley started to do the same thing tonight, but we didn't let it happen. We won Set 3, made a great comeback in Set 4 and finished things in Set 5. I thought tonight was a huge confidence booster for those girls. It showed them that they're totally capable of getting on top and finishing things off."

There's room and time for improvement

The Arrows are still very young and that's good, because as younger players gain experience they tend to get better.

Paulson, a 5-foot-8 outside hitter and solid all-around player, and Rohde, a 5-7 libero, are good leaders for a team that features a talented group of junior hitters in 5-9 Tisher, 5-10 Hauger, 6-1 Jurrens and 5-9 Hannah Herzog.

Thury, a 5-9 sophomore middle hitter, is also part of the mix up front, Corey, a sophomore, and Falconer, a junior, share the setting duties.

"There are a couple of areas where we'd like to be stronger," said Bellum. "We have a some taller girls and I want to be a team that other teams worry about trying to hit against at the net. I want us to become a better blocking team and a better serve receive teams."

Bellum said the coaching staff has spent the last week or so breaking down and working on improving the squad's serve receiving.

What's going well so far

Hawkins said her squad is doing a very good job of serving the ball aggressively and putting other teams on the defensive to prevent them from getting good swings against the Arrows.

The early returns on the extra work with serve receive has also led to better passing.

For the most part, Watertown has displayed a balanced hitting attack, but Tisher was a big focus on Thursday. She recorded 14 of her 17 kills in the first three sets.

Bellum said Tisher and Paulson both had a good share of success hitting on the left side for the Arrows, who were trying to avoid the middle against Brandon Valley's 6-1 junior Mya Hejl.

"We did feed the ball to the left more tonight on purpose," said Bellum. "When we got down to the final two sets, Emily and Kendall had played the entire match and we're starting to get tired. That's when we made more of an effort to set some more back-side hits and Carter did well at the end."

Watertown has only one match in each of the next two weeks and the additional practice time will not only be used to help work on some problem areas, but also will lead to some conditioning time.

This article originally appeared on Watertown Public Opinion: A seasonal summary so far for Watertown High School's volleyball team.