NORTH ROBINSON — The Colonel Crawford Lady Eagles volleyball squad returns in the fall of 2019, once again led into battle by head coach Amber Christy, entering season number nine.
After a 14-9 overall finish a year ago, including a 10-6 mark within Northern-10 Athletic Conference play, Christy will have some big shoes to fill.
Danielle Horsley, Izzie Stalter and Hailey Ratliff all walked the stage to receive diplomas in the spring of 2018. All three of which earned all-conference honors for the Lady Eagles for their work in the fall of 2018.
Horsley, Crawford’s lone member of the N-10 first-team, was also a member of the District VI second-team and a District VI all-star while finishing fourth in the league in digs (366) and seventh in the conference in assists (263). Stalter, a second-team, all-conference member was fifth in kills in the N-10 (260) and 10th in digs (294) while also picking up District VI honorable mention and WBCO all-star honors. Ratliff was named an N-10 honorable mention and was at the top of the charts in digs in the conference with 512 in 2018.
However, with the departing comes the returning and Christy will have six returning letterwinners suiting up in 2019.
Senior Keirsten O’Rourke will provide the leadership as the only senior on the Lady Eagles. O’Rourke is coming off of a season in which she finished sixth in the N-10 in blocks with 44.
Other returning letterwinners for Crawford in ‘19 will be juniors Alyssa Sallee, Allison Teglovic, Hannah Plesac, Jenna Maddy and Olivia Pasqualini.
Sallee and Teglovic are looking for varsity letter number three for the black and yellow and made quite an impact for Christy and the Eagles a season ago. Sallee finished eighth in the N-10 in assists (253) while Teglovic was second in overall serving, going 334/360, including 53 aces and also tied for eighth in digs on defense (299).
As far as newcomers to the scene, Christy says to keep an eye out for Rylee Ritzhaupt as she “will be a key hitter in the success of our program.”
“This is a fairly young group of varsity players,” says the head coach simply. “We look to improve match to match, better our defense and be at our highest level when it’s time to enter the tournament…The top half of our league is very strong, but we hope to be up there yet again following our fourth place finish last year.”
The Lady Eagles opened their season back on August 17 with a 3-0 win over Riverdale before sweeping conference foes, the Upper Sandusky Lady Rams on August 20 to improve to 2-0 overall and 1-0 in the league. Colonel Crawford suffered their first defeat of the season on Thursday, August 22 when the Carey Lady Blue Devils came to town and won; 3-1. The following Saturday, Christy and the Eagles headed to Ontario and were defeated in five sets; 3-2 to move to 2-2 overall on the season and 1-1 in N-10 play.
