Hinton continues WEC stomp with win over SOS

The Hinton volleyball squad maintained its perfect War Eagle Conference record with a 3-0 sweep of South O'Brien on the road in Paullina Thursday evening.

Both squads came out aggressive in game one, battling for the first win of the match. Hinton came out on top with a 25-19 win to take control of the match.

The Blackhawks continued that control in game two as they worked their way to a 25-11 win.

Hinton won the match in game three with a 25-9 win over the hosts.

"[South O'Brien] came out pretty aggressive at the beginning, but so did we," Hinton coach Kate Ortegren said. "We had a good start and we just kind of built on it."

"We were able to use some of the free balls they gave us for some quick plays," she continued.

Ortegren explained the advantages to her squad from the number of free balls the Wolverines were sending over the net. "It's nice to be able to set up plays, having a lot of free balls coming our way," Ortegren said. "That all starts with our aggressive serving, it just takes it out of their offense."

Hinton's serving efforts were led by Britni Freed and Kylee Landenberger, who each smacked a pair of ace serves over the net.

"Defensively, they had some strong hitters, but we kind of took them out of the game," Ortegren added.

Digging out the Wolverines hits, Hinton was led by Freed with 10 digs. The Blackhawks were also able to block a number of South O'Brien hits. Erin Hedlund and Ashton Moody each had a pair of solo blocks. Moody added two assist blocks while Hedlund assisted on one block.

Returning the digs and other passes to Landenberger in the setter's position allowed the Blackhawks to set up their powerful swingers and generate a strong offensive attack.

Landenberger dished up 29 assists in the match.

Freed led the offense with 14 kills while Hedlund smacked in eight kills. Moody rained down five kills in the win.

With the 3-0 sweep of South O'Brien, Hinton improves to 7-0 in the WEC with just two league games remaining.

Next Tuesday the Blackhawks will host Unity Christian before traveling to face Sergeant Bluff-Luton on Thursday.

"I'm excited to see Unity," Ortegren said.

"I think we'll be able to play with them and handle them. We go to some tougher tournaments so our girls are used to seeing bigger, quicker teams."