North Platte St. Pat’s got sizable leads and hung on in all three sets on Thursday as they swept Sutherland at the McGahan Activities Center.

The scores of the sets were 25-18, 25-15, 25-19.

“All season we’ve talked about being aggressive servers and that finally fell our way tonight,” St. Pat’s Head Coach Maddy Krebs said. “We’ve been serving aggressively but with a lot of errors and tonight, we minimized those errors and we put them out of system a lot.”

In the first set, it was Sutherland (9-13) who took a 9-5 lead after Leah Harper made a kill. But St. Pat’s (11-9) came back to tie it at 11 after Olivia Phelps served for an ace. Sutherland won the next two points but the Irish tied it again at 13 after kills by Ruby Uerling and Kelsie Allison before taking the lead when Uerling made another kill on the left side.

Both teams battled until St. Pat’s scored five straight with Brooke Brosius serving to take a 20-16 lead. The Sailors only scored two more points after that and the Irish took the first set.

St. Pat’s scored the first five points of the second set with Jade Welch serving. The lead grew to double figures at 13-3 after consecutive kills by Phelps and the Irish never looked back as they gained positioning for a sweep.

St. Pat’s took control of the third set as they went up 13-8 on a Uerling kill that followed an ace by Phelps. The Irish led by as much as eight as they finished off Sutherland.

“We started a little bit slow, a little nervous but once we got that first set under our belts, we settled in,” Krebs said. “We were getting blocks, some touches on defense, our serve-receive was great tonight. They just ran away with it and did a nice job.”

With two starters out, the Sailors were disjointed. Too often, they were out of system and committed unforced errors. Sutherland Head Coach Samantha Steffes said Thursday was one of those situations a team finds themselves in every once in a while, where they are overmatched due missing personnel. A win is unlikely in that situation but they still have to fight their way through it.

“We’re adjusting to a new defense and offense,” she said. “We’re recovering from injuries and coming back and playing new positions.”

Next, St. Pat’s will host Southwest (10-11) and Chase County (3-14) in a triangular on Tuesday, while Sutherland will host Sandhills-Thedford (12-5) on Tuesday.

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