Saint freshman steps up in regional opener
By Kristi Nixon
ST. ANSGAR — A year ago, St. Ansgar’s Ava Falk was splitting her athletics’ time between middle school cross country and volleyball.
She had no idea when she chose to concentrate solely on volleyball this year that she would be playing such a key role in the Saints’ Class 1A Region 5 opener against Northwood-Kensett.
The outside hitter led coach Tyler Johnson’s team with nine kills in the 25-18, 25-14, 25-16 sweep of the Lady Vikings on Monday, Oct. 17.
“Not really,” Ava Falk admitted about anticipating making an impact this year. “Because…I don’t know, I wasn’t expecting to be on varsity, but I knew that people were needed to step up since people were getting hurt. Once I got on varsity I realized I needed to start concentrating more and probably get better so I can do better in games.”
The Saints (16-11) advance to play Tripoli (17-18) on Wednesday, Oct. 19.
Ava Falk was needed since the Saints were trying to shake off a little rust, having not played for a full week prior to the regional.
“It showed offensively more than I thought it was going to,” coach Tyler Johnson, who was voted TIC East coach of the year, announced recently. “A lot of hitting errors I would prefer not to see right now. We have one day to kind of get the hitting and serving cleaned up. Hopefully, we do.”
The full story will appear in the Oct. 26 print and online editions of the Enterprise Journal.
