Glen Strandberg
Sports Editor

It’s a good thing the Forest Lake volleyball team is taking part in the Eastview Invitational this weekend, because the Suburban East Conference has provided little challenge for the girls this fall.

Last week had the Rangers at Hastings on Oct. 2, and visiting Cretin-Derham Hall on Thursday, and neither one took much effort for head coach Sherri Alm’s team to improve to 17-2 on the year.

About the only area where Forest Lake looked shaky was when they gave Cretin a small amount of hope in the early stages of game one.

Thursday’s match started with the Rangers looking sleepy and the Raiders taking the lead, which caused an animated Alm to wonder what had happened to her squad.

About midway through that first game, Forest Lake decided they should go ahead and win the thing, and then went on to sweep 25-21, 25-16, 25-12.

“Twenty-one (points) is way too many for them to have,” Alm said.

She felt the dozen points in game three was more appropriate, as the girls now prepare to wrap up the regular season next Tuesday at Woodbury.

But in the victory over Cretin-Derham Hall, it was the usual Ranger suspects leading the way.

Megan McKenzie had 29 setting assists, which — going into Tuesday’s match against Mounds View — put her just 21 shy of 3000 for her high school career. McKenzie also went 17-for17 on serves and picked up two aces in the process.

The ace leader was Lexi Alm with five, and she also finished with eight kills on the evening.

Outpacing her and everyone else on kills was Chelsie Sobieck with 13, and she was also tops in digs with 18. Both she and Lexi Alm collected three blocks against the Raiders.

Finishing off another steady week was Jamie Bucholz (.429 kill efficiency), who filled up the stat sheet with seven kills, 10 digs, four blocks and 100 percent serving.

Part of the reason the Rangers appeared to be waiting for the snooze alarm to go off on Thursday could be attributed to their easy win over Hastings two days prior.

The Raiders of Hastings went down 25-10, 25-17 and 25-14, in a match that took all of 52 minutes to complete.

Forest Lake was able to get everyone into the game, and even with the mixing of new players, coach Alm was impressed with the limited hitting errors by her crew.

Sobieck (12 kills) and Lexi Alm were both over .600 in kill efficiency, and Caitlin Lehner wasn’t far behind at .571.

McKenzie had 33 setting assists, while Lexi Alm cranked out six aces, 18 digs and 11 kills.

Before closing the Suburban East Conference portion of their schedule, the Rangers will participate at Eastview this Friday and Saturday. With her players needing to face a little more intense competition, coach Alm is glad to have this invitational.

“It is a good tournament and they know that,” she said about her team. “And hopefully that will fire them up.”

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