Tennis team falls twice

The Benson volleyball team won’t mind leaving home next week after hosting three strong teams to open up the 2012 season.The Braves fell to Sauk Centre in three games to open up the season, Aug. 30, and last week, Benson fell to Morris Area in four games and Melrose Area in three.  All three of those matches were at home.That leaves the Braves with an 0-3 overall and 0-2 conference mark early in the schedule.  This week, Benson is set to play its first away match.  In fact, the next six scheduled matches are away, including a match at Minnewaska, Tuesday (yesterday), a match at Paynesville, Thursday (tomorrow), and the Minnewaska Invitational, Saturday.“Right now, we are making too many mistakes and we’ll have to clean that up to win matches,” head coach Shannon Schmidt said.  “However, we have played three very good teams, and our defense is playing solid volleyball.  I thought we played with Melrose pretty well, but we just came up a little short.”Listed as varsity members for this year’s team are seniors Alexa Nissen, Emma Peterson, and Abby Tolifson; juniors Cyra Carlson, Hannah Moline, Brianna Staton, and Bethany Erhardt; sophomores Shaleah Schmidt, Shyanne Himley, Krista Motzko, Madyson Krienke, and Taylor Laumeyer; and ninth-grader Hanna Lindblad.Morris 3, Benson 1The Braves fell to 0-2 overall with a 25-20, 21-25, 25-20, 25-23 loss to Morris Area last Tuesday night in Benson.  It was a back-and-forth affair between the two WCC foes that was finally decided when a block by Paige Schieler caromed off a Benson defender and went out of bounds.The Braves had chances in each game, but serving may have been a key as to why Benson didn’t pick up at least one more game win.  Each game seemed to follow the same path -- Tigers would gain an early lead, Braves would battle back late, and then Morris would squeak out the win.