The Honkers rallied to claim a marathon opening set before settling in and taking the final two in less dramatic fashion en route to a straight-set sweep of the Knights, 31-29, 25-20, 25-20, on Thursday, Sept. 4, in a matchup between two Region 3 teams with plenty of program pedigree.

Between Kenmare coach Tim Wallstrum and ORCS coach Kara Nunziato, the two have taken their teams to 21 state tournaments. The Honkers took part in last year’s state tournament, placing fifth.

Both look to get back to the state tournament this season, and it’s been Kenmare that has gotten off to a strong start early in the season. Following a five-set victory over Bishop Ryan on Tuesday, Sept. 2, the Honkers avoided another drawn out match, but it still required quite a bit of energy, especially in the opening set.

The Knights (0-1) led the majority of the first set on the strength of their serving game. ORCS recorded six aces in the opening set, three coming from Kadyn Braun. The Knights led 22-17 late in the set, but the Honkers made a late charge with a 7-1 run to grab a 24-23 lead. From there it was back and forth, with four lead changes and seven set points until the Honkers closed it out with a kill and an ace from Charlotte Brekhus.

“The poise was just hustle because we have such a young team and so we don’t have the technical skills that we would like to have yet, but I thought we really hustled hard tonight,” said Wallstrum, who collected his 1,076 career win in his 38th season.

Kenmare (2-0) locked down defensively over the final two sets, frustrating ORCS’ hitters by digging out balls the Knights otherwise would have considered sure winners. Makaya Jensen led the defensive effort with 12 digs and Kiley Aufforth added seven.

“That comes down to hustle and I have a really good libero,” Wallstrum said. “She’s doing a really nice job for us back there. She’s a strong girl. She digs a lot of those hits, so that helped us out a lot. We’re coming together as a team because we have three freshmen starting and then a senior. It takes time to come together as a team, but we’re getting there.”

The Knights claimed the first four points of the second set, but Kenmare fought back with an 8-0 run and despite ORCS drawing even eight times and grabbing a brief one-point lead at 11-10, Kenmare took the middle set on the strong play of middle hitters Taya Aufforth and Trista Kihle. The duo combined for nine kills in the set and Taya Aufforth added two blocks and an ace as well.

The Honkers had just one ace in the opening set, but came through with seven over the final two sets. On the opposite side, the Knights opened with six aces, but had just two the rest of the match.

“All we practice is serve and serve-receive,” Taya Aufforth said. “We work on passing every day and I think that’s the most crucial part of our defense. We learned to talk more and shake off the mistakes we made.”

Kenmare led throughout the majority of the third set, building as much as a seven-point lead at one point. The Knights tried to make one final push to extend the match, stringing together a late 4-0 run to get within 22-19, but the Honkers closed out the match with a kill by Amaya Baptiste and two final kills by Kihle to walk away with the straight-set victory.

“Kenmare played pretty inspirational defense,” Nunziato said. “I don’t know if I have seen so many balls we thought were for sure going down just pop right back up. The rallies were long and I think our confidence was just a little rattled.”

Kihle finished with a match-high 16 kills and Taya Aufforth also finished in double figures with 11.

Brooklyn Roedocker led the Knights with 10 kills, with Lauren Strom adding nine and Noel Pankratz with six. Grace Olson recorded 25 assists from the setter position and led the defense with 21 digs. Braun had a match-high three aces and chipped in 18 digs.

“From every loss there are learning outcomes to follow,” Nunziato said. “The season is young and we have a lot of time to figure out where we need to score and where we need to limit our errors.”

Both ORCS and Kenmare will compete in tournaments over the weekend, with the Knights playing in the Volley in the Valley Tournament and the Honkers participating in the Coal Country Tournament. ORCS will play Sargent County, Larimore and Linton-HMB in pool play. Kenmare will play Beulah, Center-Stanton and New England in their respective pool play. Both tournaments are Saturday, Sept. 6.