By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Silver Lake's volleyball team didn't get off to the best of starts in Saturday's Rossville Invitational, but the rest of the day belonged to the Eagles.
Sarah Johnson's Eagles dropped a tough three-set match to Nemaha Central in their first pool play match (17-25, 25-23, 18-25), but rebounded to take pool wins over Ottawa (23-25, 25-17, 27-25), the NEK Saints (25-19, 27-25) and Abilene (25-18, 26-24).
The Eagles were pushed to their third three-set match of the day by host Rossville in the semifinals, with Silver Lake outlasting the Bulldawgs, 25-17, 20-25, 25-23 to earn a rematch with Nemaha Central in the championship match.
Silver Lake topped the Thunder in two sets, 25-22, 25-17, to cap their 5-1 day with the tourney title.
Senior middle blocker/right side hitter Camilla Ossola led the Eagles with 49 kills on .350 hitting and had 10 blocks.
Sophomore setter Sarah Wehrli compiled 94 assists and had 10 service aces for Silver Lake while sophomore setter McKinley Kruger had 76 assists and six aces.
Senior libero Taryn Burkhardt recorded 96 digs on the day for the Eagles while junior defensive specialist Lexis Berndt had 70 digs and sophomore right side hitter/middle blocker Kaibryn Kruger recorded 32 kills with eight blocks and seven aces.
Rossville also turned in a very solid tournament performance, bouncing back from the tough semifinal loss to Silver Lake to win its third-place match and cap a 5-1 day.