It wasn’t hard to figure out who the ball was going to go through for the Bolivar Lady Liberators on Thursday night.
Trying to stop the attack was a different story.
Senior Kiley Ramsey and junior Anna Wolf provided a powerful 1-2 punch as Bolivar made quick work of the Stockton Lady Tigers with a 25-17, 25-19 nonconference victory at Bolivar High School.
Ramsey dished out 23 assists and Wolf was happy to oblige with 12 kills – her best outing of the season.
“That’s one of my best games, I think,” said Wolf, who attacked from both the front row and the back row. “We use a quick offense, so that works a lot, too.
“(Ramsey) gets us the really quick ones (sets) and it’s easy. And we can run (the offense) quick, so that’s how she gets it to us all the time.”
The first set was tight for the first several points before Bolivar reeled off five straight on Wolf’s serve to pull ahead 12-6.
From that point on, the Lady Liberators (4-2) didn’t give Stockton (2-7-1) much of an opportunity to string together many points.
“In practice, we work on forcing them to make runs, coming from behind, breaking the other team’s runs,” Bolivar head coach Krystal Allen said. “And this year, we just have the mental toughness and the mental stability to be able to overcome the other team’s runs or our errors. We just overcome it. We’re a lot more tough mentally.”
It was more of the same in the second as Bolivar pulled away from a close set to put together a three-point run and then another four-point run for a 9-5 lead.
The Lady Liberators used several of those runs to pull out the win and also get other players involved in the offensive attack.
Junior Hope White collected five kills, while junior Ashley Rash and freshman Emma Larimore added four kills apiece.
“Anna Wolf and Hope White are strong hitters,” Allen said. “They’re very high-percentage attackers. They get kills most of the time they touch the ball. They’re very smart and very strong hitters. But it also helps us because the other team commits to them so that we can set our pin hitters and still get single blocks out there and get kills from them.
“So, them being strong even helps other hitters get more kills.”
Stockton coach Lisa Kenney was disappointed but knows there will be growing pains early in the season by carrying a tough schedule, facing larger schools like Bolivar, Buffalo and Willard.
“We’ve just got to not let things get us down,” Kenney said. “I think we’ll see a lot better results toward the end of the season from them.
“The effort was there.”
BOLIVAR 25-25, STOCKTON 17-19
Nonconference match
STOCKTON (2-7-1) – 17-19
BOLIVAR (4-2) – 25-25
Stat leaders
KILLS – (Stockton) Maggie Fischer 3, Kayla Barlow, Lauren Rhodes, 2; (Bolivar) Anna Wolf 12, Hope White 5, Ashley Rash, Emma Larimore 4.
ASSISTS – (Stockton) Sierra Kenney 5; (Bolivar) Kiley Ramsey 23.
ACES – (Stockton) Kenney, Kayla Hobbs 1; (Bolivar) Ramsey 3, Larimore, Kelsie Barber 1.
Stockton B 21-27-25, Bolivar B 25-25-22
