Western Boone Jr. - Sr. High School

DOVER - There have been a few ups and downs for the Western Boone volleyball team in recent weeks. But while there are still some things the Stars are working on as they hit the second half of the season, there is still plenty of positives they can build on. That was evident Thursday during an easy 3-0 (25-7, 25-17, 25-3) win over Frankfort. "We are building toward the end of the season," Western Boone head coach Laura Bragg said. "We are really working on three things - a quicker tempo, especially with our middles; serving and our service pressure has helped up; and then our serve receive making sure we stay in system." All three of the things the Stars have been working on were put to good use throughout the night. In the first set, the Stars got their middles very involved, with Emmerson Gott getting four kills and a block. Emma McClaine also got a kill, and Bragg said that opened up everything for the Stars. "It definitely opens up the offense," Bragg said. "When we do that, our opponents middles and block can't just focus on Raegan (Durbin) and Sadie (Poeck). That has been a big focus of ours in practice is to make sure we have a presence in the middle." The second set wasn't the Stars best overall. WeBo jumped out to a 21-9 lead, but saw Frankfort cut it to 21-14 before trading points to finish out the set. freestar It was a similar situation to a couple of the Stars recent losses to Danville and New Castle, where the Stars lost some of their focus and attention to detail and the other team capitalized. "We got really unfocused at the end of the second set," Bragg said. "It can be tough when you have an easy first set to maintain that edge. They had some really nice points too and our serve receive was a little off. We have been working on, because we have to have that focus. We have make sure we hold ourselves accountable because if we want to accomplish our goals we have to be focused at all times." The third set saw the Stars get that killer instinct back and their serving dominated. WeBo jumped out to an 8-3 lead and after a side out, Durbin rattled off 16-straight points to end the match. She had four aces in the rally and five in the match, highlighting the aggressive serving Bragg wanted the Stars to focus on. Durbin finished with 18 kills and 10 digs in the match, while Poeck had 12 and seven. Olivia Smith had 11 digs and Janie Ransom had 33 assists. It was a good week for the Stars, going on the road to beat McCutcheon before topping the Hot Dogs. They have another challenging week ahead, facing Harrison, LCC, Brownsburg and Terre Haute South. "We hadn't beaten McCutcheon in 6-7 years and they are a great program with an amazing coach," Bragg said. "Just having a good week with two wins was huge for us." Will Willems is the Sports Editor of the Lebanon Reporter. Follow him on Twitter @Will_Willems.