The Prescott Cardinals volleyball team cruised to three consecutive victories at the New Richmond quad on Tuesday, Aug. 30, which included a perfect 6-0 record in sets against Ellsworth, New Richmond and Durand.

For Prescott head coach Tracey Budworth, the New Richmond quad confirmed that her roster has continued to mesh together and be- come more confident. It also indicated that instruction in practice on serving and serve receiving has improved dramatically in the last week.

The Cardinals displayed the improvement at serving and serve receiving in the opening set against Ellsworth on Tuesday evening. Prescott jumped out to a quick lead before the Panthers responded with a scoring run of their own to make it 13-12, still in favor of the Cardinals.

However, it was Prescott that went on the next scoring run which led to a 25-18 victory in the debut set. The second set proved to be similar, as Prescott again mounted a scoring run in the middle of the set to put Ellsworth away. That 5-0 run for the Cardinals led to a 25-17 victory in the second set to sweep the best-of-three series 2-0.

Prescott quickly disposed of New Richmond in two sets in the second match of the afternoon. The Cardinals won the first set 25- 17 before completing the sweep with a 25-14 victory in the second set.

Prescott sophomore Natalie Ptacek was a standout in the first two matches against Ells worth and New Richmond. She took advantage of scoring opportunities on the outside while providing valuable defense at the net. Coach Budworth spoke about Ptacek’s development this season. “I wasn’t on the bench last season, but Katrina (Budworth) has commented more than once how much more confidence Natalie (Ptacek) has this year,” Tracey Budworth said. “Natalie is one of our most fun athletes at practice, but she also works her tail off. She gets everybody going and works and works. She’s never slacking.”

Prescott’s first taste of true adversity came in the first set against Durand. The Cardinals jumped out to a 10-5 lead which forced a Durand timeout. That’s when the Panthers came storming back and took an 18-15 lead.

The Cardinals regrouped and strung together a scoring run that resulted in a 25-22 victory. Prescott took care of business 25-18 in the second set to secure another 2-0 sweep in the best-of-three series.

The perfect 3-0 overall record and 6-0 record in sets proved to be one of Prescott’s most impressive outings of the 2022 season thus far. Coach Budworth spoke about the mentality heading into that New Richmond quad.

“We came in and we had talked about not losing a set tonight,” Tracey Budworth said. “Every time our starters play together, they look better every single time and they really meshed tonight. They had very high energy.”

Prescott’s biggest weakness in the first three weeks of the season was serving and serve receiving, which was evident at the annual University of Wisconsin-Stout Sprawl volleyball tournament. The Cardinals struggled in both aspects, which led to easy points for the opposition.

Since then, coach Budworth has spent copious amounts of practice time working on getting better at serving and receiving serves. She spoke about the success in those two categories at the New Richmond quad compared to the Sprawl several weeks ago.

“Our serve receive was night and day compared to what it was down at the Sprawl,” Tracey Budworth said. “I’m really happy with that. It was also great to get some other girls out on the floor and get them some exposure. I got to see how they work with the other starters and they played well. I’m very happy with how things went tonight.”

Prescott is all but done with non-conference competition for the 2022 season. The final non-conference matchup is on Tuesday, Sept. 13, on the road against Hastings. According to Budworth, Reese Ptacek got a chance to watch Hastings play earlier this season and brought back valuable scouting information.

“We’re over in Hastings next week and we’re feeling really good about that one,” Budworth said. “Then we’ve got our first conference match at home on Thursday night. We’re working on getting our student section pumped up.”

Prescott’s game on the road against Hastings is slated to begin at 7 p.m. The Thursday night Middle Border Conference opener is against Baldwin-Woodville. That contest is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.