North Adams sophomore Morgan Wheeler goes down for a dig attempt in the Lady Devils win over Fairfield. (Photo by Tim Daulton)
This has been a common scene for the North Adams Lady Devils varsity volleyball squad in 2024, celebrating another point. (Photo by Tim Daulton)
By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
In one of their many county music hits, the group Alabama sang to “Roll on”, and that is a very apt description of the season thus far for the North Adams Lady Devils volleyball program. As this issue went to press, Coach Katie Ragan and the varsity Lady Devils were rolling on, unblemished at 14-0, 8-0 in conference play, while Coach Rob Meade’s JV squad sported a 11-2 mark.
The varsity Lady Devils are on their usual mission, that to capture their third Southern Hills Athletic Conference gold ball trophy in the last four seasons, winning 47 of their 49 conference matches after last week’s results. That is the ultimate definition of a “dynasty”.
In their first match of this season, the Lady Devils prevailed in five sets over Minford in a non-conference match, them proceeded to go 10 matches without losing a single set. The only set they have dropped in conference play came on September 13 when they defeated the top team in the small school division, the Fairfield Lady Lions in four sets.
The 2024 Lady Devils can come at you from many directions with many weapons, led by senior Katelynn Boerger, who is making a great case to repeat as the SHAC Player of the Year. Boerger has already accumulated 226 kills for the season, 25 of those coming in the win over Fairfield. North Adams is a powerful team at the net, with kill totals of 92 from senior Aulbrea Meade, 82 from junior Paige Evans, 73 from sophomore Ava Pistole and 54 from sophomore Emma Pistole.
Junior Natalie Ragan is one of the are’as top setters and she has dished out 453 assists to this point, an average of 32 per match. The Lady Devils are not afraid to go down and dig balls out as Evans leads the team in that category with 164, followed by Boerger with 131, sophomore Elizabeth Raines with 106, Meade with 99, Ragan with 98 and sophomore Morgan Wheeler with 87.
After an impressive three-set win over Western Brown, the Lady Devils faced a busy week, traveling to Portsmouth Notre Dame on Monday, September 23 in non-conference action, then heading to Lynchburg the next night to face a much-improved Lady Mustangs squad in a conference match up, then hosting the Peebles Lady Indians on September 26 in another conference battle.
