CENTRAL CITY — It may not have been exactly the way Anamosa volleyball coach Angie Lawrence had written the script for the Raiders’ first Tri-Rivers Conference volleyball triumph of the 2006 campaign, but she’ll take it.

“It wasn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but we got it done,” said Lawrence after her team posted a 25-21, 25-19, 25-19 victory at Central City Tuesday, September 26. “We never really seemed to get on any kind of a roll but it was enough to beat a struggling Central City team. They played us tough and hustled all over the floor. At times I thought maybe Central City wanted to win this match more than we did. But we came in with the confidence that this was a team we were not going to lose against and we played just well enough to get that accomplished.”

Anamosa (4-14, 1-4) was led by Katelyn Jamison and her 12 kills at the offensive net on just 19 attacks without a single error.

“Katelyn has really been stepping up her game lately and it’s been showing on the court,” said Lawrence. “We’ve been gradually working with her to help some of her offensive skills and they’re starting to make a big difference. I really think she’s playing with a lot more confidence too.”

Kandis Bieber and Maisie Timp each added six kills for the visitors as Raider hitters were coming at Wildcat defenders from all over the net.

“That’s the idea,” said Lawrence. “We don’t want to be a one-dimensional team offensively. We want several girls in there getting the kills so the defense doesn’t know who to block.”

Timp slammed 17 attacks at Central City defenders while Bieber added another 12. Bryn Gerber and Allison Walshire came through with three kills each while Dakota Ahrendsen chipped in with two more.

“Kandis has been getting more consistent hitting the volleyball too,” said Lawrence. “Maisie keeps gaining more and more confidence at the varsity level as well.”

Gerber led the team setting 19 assists while Ahrendsen tallied three and Rachelle Bahl chipped in with two.

“Bryn wasn’t feeling too well for a while and Rachelle stepped in and did a very nice job,” said Lawrence. “Once Bryn got back in, she felt a little better.”

WHEATLAND — Coming off what Anamosa cross country coach Phil Kauder called a lackluster effort at the Raiders’ meet at Central Park, his club rebounded in a big way just two days later at Calamus-Wheatland Monday, September 25.

“Our whole Raider team ran much more aggressively tonight and were very competitive in this approach,” said Kauder after the Anamosa girls placed fourth overall and the boys seventh at the meet. “What a comeback effort by Mitch Kelly tonight too.”

Kelly led the Anamosa boys placing 11th overall with a solid time of 18:44 as the Raider boys scored 194 points and defeated North Cedar (199 points), West Liberty (225), Midland (287), Northeast (296), Alburnett (298) and the host Warriors (398).

“He looked stuck in 20th-place,” said Kauder. “But Mitch came running down the stretch to secure his position.”

Midland (17-5, 5-1) rode a wave of emotion carried by a raucous Eagle student section and packed home crowd against the Indians in the early going.

“There was more of the same in the second match too,” said Schurbon. “I thought we were going to win it but fell just short.”

Camanche rallied taking the second game after the hosts had led through most of the match in each of the first two games.

“At the end we just started playing safe and needed to attack,” said Schurbon. “That set the tone for the last two games. We played well at times but needed to attack and Camanche took advantage of our pushes and attacked with a quick hit that we weren’t able to adjust to.”

Keilani Fowler stepped up and delivered 10 kills at the Indians while Sammy Reid added eight more to go with 13 assists and nine digs.

Aubrey Walters and Kayla Thordsen slammed home five kills each in the four-set match while Kassidy Schroeder chipped in with four more while adding four assists.

Brandi Larkey, Fowler, Reid and Natasha Yarolem all delivered service aces. Amanda Hansen paced the club with 17 digs.

ANAMOSA — There are times in high school sports when the outcome on the scoreboard doesn’t truly reflect the actual play on the field.

Friday, September 29, wasn’t one of those times for the Anamosa football team.

“There are no silver linings here or positives to build from,” said Raider football coach Jeff Kean after his team was hammered by visiting Mount Vernon in a lopsided 70-7 final. “We just got beat and then beat up by a very good football team from Mount Vernon. They kept coming at us and we kept missing tackles and they kept scoring. It was as simple as that. We knew where they were going to run the ball, we just didn’t run to those spots and when we did, we couldn’t make the tackles. This is a tough loss to swallow but we’re going to move on and focus on our next task at hand and that’s going to be suiting everyone up who wants to play and play hard and take them to Tiffin this Friday night. That is a game we can win and if we enter it with the right attitude, we’ll get the job done.”

Anamosa (1-4, 0-3) struggled mightily against the vaunted Mount Vernon running game all night long as the visitors piled up 351 total rushing yards on just 30 carries.

“That’s almost 12 yards every time they ran the football at us,” said Kean. “We were just getting blown off the line of scrimmage by guys who were much more physical, bigger and stronger than we were.”

Michael Taylor started the scoring for the Mustangs in the very first quarter picking off a Mitch Kelly pass and racing 44 yards into the end zone. But the touchdowns kept coming as Jacob Ryan added scoring runs of 11 and 19 yards giving Mount Vernon a commanding 21-0 advantage after just 12 minutes of play.

“That initial burst of theirs really took the energy right out of us,” said Kean. “It didn’t help either that we showed up not ready to play. Against a team like Mount Vernon, doing that will make for a very long night. And it did.”