Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First

The future is bright for the Kimball Lady Longhorns volleyball team

Fresh off a winning season of 15 wins and 14 losses, the Kimball High Volleyball program appears to be in good shape and ready to step it up even more next season with everyone returning! That's right, no seniors on this year's squad while all of the competition will be losing valuable starters off their rosters.

Not only did the Lady Longhorns finish on the win side of the ledger, but they also finished runnerup in the Western Trails Conference final standings, finishing only behind WTC Conference champs Mitchell. Bayard was 3rd and Bridgeport 4th, and you might remember that Bridgeport was the sub-district champions. Kimball won over the Lady Bulldogs twice this past season.

By vote of the conference coaches, Kimball had 3 players voted to the all conference team in juniors Madison Biesecker, Danika Daum, and Madie Snyder, plus honorable mention for junior Ali Hunsaker and Raelynn Hinton. All five will return! Plus, the remaining varsity starters and contributors from this year's team, and a good group of incoming freshmen who might help the cause.

In analyzing the stats from this past season, the Kimball ladies had a hard time on the home court with only 1 win and 5 losses. On the road they were 7-6 at opponents home courts, and were 7-3 on neutral sites. In conference play they were 6-3. As a team they wound up with a 91% serving percentage with Myriah Tyan a perfect 100% and 18 points as she came on strong at the latter part of the season. Madison Biesecker won the top serving honors by a large margin with 221 points and a 94.8% figure. Others in double figures were Madie Snyder with 154 points and 92.1%, Danika Daum 147 and 89.6%, Raelynn Hinton 101 and 92.9%, Hannah Biesecker 97 and 83.3%, Ali Hunsaker 78 and 90.2%.

The Lady Horns had 785 kills in 2603 attempts averaging 10.2 per game with a kill percentage of 30.2%. Daum was the leader with 292, Madison Biesecker had 207, Snyder 107, Hinton 80, Hunsaker 50, and Hannah Biesecker 37. Two standouts in the assist department with Madison Biesecker charting 388 and Daum 312 while the team registered 723 averaging 9.4 per match.

From the defensive stats, the team had 127 blocks averaging 1.6 per game with Daum charting the most blocks with 60, Madison Biesecker 25, Hinton 22, and Hannah Biesecker 21. The team averaged 19.2 digs per match with Hunsaker the leader with 70, followed by Hinton with 55, Snyder 47, Daum 45, Madison Biesecker 37, Hannah Biesecker 34, and Jannel Fiehtner 25.

Next season coach Vicki Mitchell will have 6 seniors, many of whom have been starters, or big time contributors for three seasons already. They include Daum, Madison Biesecker, Madie Snyder, Ali Hunsaker, Myriah Tyan, and Ireland Olson. Juniors next year will include Hinton, Fiehtner, Shauntae Daily, Kaitlin Wurdeman, Audrey McDowall, and Hanna Klosterman. There were 4 freshmen this year and 3 suited varsity. Justine Heeg, Kaylyn Nelson, Hannah Biesecker, and Alex Reader showed lots of talent, and will return ready to battle for starting roles.

No wonder coach Mitchell is optimistic about next season!