Mariah Cooke

The Blue Earth Area Buccaneers finished up their South Central Conference season with a trip to St. James last Thursday. The Bucs were defeated 3-2, dropping their conference record to 8-2.

However, the Bucs still wrapped up the conference title, despite the loss.

BEA has one more regular season game, traveling to Windom on Monday night, before opening post-season play on Thursday against Montgomery-Lonsdale, in Blue Earth.

Against the Saints, the scores were 16-25, 25-17, 22-25, 25-22, 15-10.

BEA won the first game with a big margin, 25-16, but turned around and lost game two by nearly the same score, 25-17.

The Bucs won game three in a close match, 25-22, to take a 2-1 lead. St. James came back with an identical score for a victory, 25-22, to knot up the match at 2-2 and set up the fifth and deciding game.

The Bucs lost that shortened game, 15-10.

Jenny Smith had a spectacular night. She led the Bucs going a perfect 26 of 26 from the serving line, with 14 service points and three aces.

Smith added six kills and had 27 digs.

Morgan Dickman was also perfect for serving, going 14 of 14 with five service points. She had 13 set assists, while teammate Ashley Olson led the team in that department with 15. Olson also had 24 digs and three ace blocks for the Bucs.

Katie Krieger also had three ace blocks for BEA.

Kate Hassing had nine digs, while Sydney Ristau added seven on the night.

The Bucs overall record fell to 14-10. Their last opponent for the regular season, the Windom Eagles, are ranked sixth in Class A.