Morgan Dickman

It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t pretty. At times it even got ugly.

But when the dust settled in the Blue Earth Area High School gym, the Buccaneer volleyball team had defeated the New Ulm Eagles in a five game marathon.

After losing the first game in a 25-12 shocker, the Bucs rebounded to soundly defeat the Eagles 25-13, 25-15 in the next two games.

However, in the fourth game, the Bucs could never get the lead. Down by as many as seven points, they fought back to within two, but fell 25-23.

That set up the all decisive fifth game, which only goes to 15 points.

It was a see-saw battle with the game knotted five times. BEA prevailed 15-12 to take the game and match.

The hard-fought victory kept the Buccaneer’s South Central Conference record at a perfect 7-0. Overall their season totals are nine wins and four losses.

Thursday night on the Buc home court that perfect conference record looked to be in jeopardy at times.

The Eagles showed they came to play, taking game one and quieting the home crowd. The New Ulm team could do little wrong, and cruised to the 25-12 win.

In game two the Bucs jumped out to a 4-0 lead, extending it to 13-4. A kill by Ashley Olson made the score 14-5, and an ace serve by Olson put it at 17-9.

Jenny Smith put down a kill to up the score to 20-12, and a Morgan Dickman ace serve made it 22-13.

The Bucs cruised to the 25-13 win.

They did the same in game three, starting out ahead 7-1. A Katie Krieger kill put the score at 9-2, and after a long volley the Bucs took a 13-4 advantage.

The Eagles made a run getting closer at 17-10, but BEA soon went up 23-11. New Ulm got four more points before the Bucs closed it out, winning 25-15.

To read more of this story, see this week’s Register.