IRON RIVER — With their difficult regular-season campaigns winding down, both the West Iron County Wykons and the Iron Mountain Mountaineers needed a boost when they met Thursday night as the district tournament beckons in early November.

Turns out, the homestanding Wykons got that mood lift after defeating the Mountaineers 25-23, 25-15, 25-21 on Senior Night at Charles Greenlund Gymnasium.

“It felt good to win tonight,” WIC coach Konnor Bjorkman said. “We just needed a morale boost. We have a long two weeks ahead of us (with five regular season matches) and then going into districts.”

“It means a lot to all of us,” senior setter/hitter Lily DeSousa added. “We’ve put in a lot of work playing different rotations during the season and I think this will bring us some momentum.”

The Wykons (4-13) have been forced to work around some injuries during this season. In their first match, WIC lost sophomore Bristol Shamion to an ankle injury and then Thursday night, junior middle Cami Alexa suffered an ankle injury in the third set.

West Iron also made a rotation shift, moving sophomore Eriana Sucholl to right side hitter/blocker. The athletic Sucholl is now showing some of her promise as a hitter and also helps the Wykons put up a more effective block against the opposition’s left outside hitters.

On the other hand, Iron Mountain continues to look for some consistency in its play, all the while trying to stay together as a team and build some confidence moving forward.

“I think confidence is a big thing (for us),” head coach Emma Cronkright said. “We stop swinging or being aggressive if we’ve had a couple of bad plays or in-the-nets, or whatever.

“I think that when one person gets down then everybody’s down. And then all of the sudden the communication is down, the setting is off, the hitting’s off. So, it just all boils down to communication and making sure everyone’s up and with a good attitude.”

The Mountaineers (3-18-1) basically played uphill all night. West Iron grabbed control of the opening set midway through on a kill and an ace from DeSousa, a tip by Sucholl and a kill from Addi Bortolameolli.

Iron Mountain did make a push late in the set, running off 11 of 14 points to knot the score at 22-all, sparked by a powerful kill and block from sophomore Monroe Vedin.

However, DeSousa responded with a push, junior outside Kylee DeVore recorded a kill and Shamion finished off the set with one of her team-best 10 kills.

“Our serve receive was good,” Bjorkman said in analysis of her team’s victory. “I think our hitters’ speed was definitely a factor. You could even with some of Bristol’s kills, the speed of her arm swing really makes a difference.

“Eriana had some great swings and Kyla (Erickson) was able to set Lily up in play. We’ve been working on getting Lily the ball in play because she has a really strong attack, too.”

The Wykons rode their momentum to a 10-2 lead to start the second. Senior Lacey Shamion smacked two aces, Erickson served one and Bristol Shamion added two kills during the run.

Aided by a kill from Ava Marttila and some WIC errors, Iron Mountain ran off nine of the next 13 points to close within 14-11. But the Wykons took over from there and scored 11 of the final 15 points to win going away.

The third set was played evenly with the teams battling to a 19-19 tie before DeSousa delivered two kills and Lacey Shamion contributed one to help the Wykons score six of the final eight points to finish the sweep.

“No Mya Hemmer, so I think we did a better job seeing the open spots and placing the ball,” DeSousa said, referring to Ishpeming’s NCAA Division 1 recruit who West Iron encountered in its previous match.

Bjorkman said her team feels it can win more matches than it has and praised her two seniors – DeSousa and Lacey Shamion – for their efforts this season.

“We’ve played some really good volleyball with some good teams, we can just never just finish.

“I’m really happy that we could do this for our seniors. They really earned it, they’ve been working hard all season, and they don’t get enough credit and recognition because we don’t have the wins.”

The Wykons head back into action Monday with a match at Norway (12-7-2), while the Mountaineers host North Dickinson (14-9-2) the same night.

Norway 3

North Central 0

Norway earned a sweep at home Thursday against North Central, 25-18, 25-21, 25-12.

“We had some great set-ups tonight and really hit the ball,” said Knights coach Meghan Rossato.

“Kendall and Addy Burklund both led with 10 kills each, and Aili Freiberg had 22 assists. Our defense took their time, which made for some good digs to capitalize on. Ashley Carlson has a great serve performance so props to her for setting up the offense.”

Serving was a highlight for the Knights, Rossato added.

“Anna DeBidart consistently serves over 90 percent and having that much consistency from the start just gets momentum that this team needs,” she said. “Kendall and Aili also had a solid night of serving, with four aces from Aili and Kendall with three aces, both with high-serving percentage rates for the night and consistently throughout the season.”

Norway stats:

Aili Freiberg, 4 aces, 3 kills, 22 assists, 4 digs

Payton Paquette, 1 assist, 6 digs

Kendall Burklund, 3 aces, 10 kills, 1 assist, 5 digs

Cayleah Clifford, 4 kills, 1 block, 2 digs

Ashley Carlson, 3 digs

Anna DeBidart, 1 ace, 6 digs

Allie Grable, 1 dig

Addy Burklund, 2 aces, 10 kills, 2 assists, 3 digs

Chloe Chartier, 5 kills, 3 digs

Forest Park 3

Rapid River 0

Traveling to Rapid River for a Skyline Central Conference match Thursday, Forest Park came away with a solid win in three sets, 25-8, 25-8, 25-6.

“I was proud of the girls for executing our game plan, minimizing mistakes, and maintaining strong momentum throughout the entire match,” said coach Bobbie Anderson.

Forest Park stats:

Ava Fischer, 2 kills. 1 assist, 3 digs, 1 ace

Harper Anderson, 4 kills, 1 block, 5 digs, 2 aces

Evie Anderson, 2 kills, 1 assist, 6 digs, 3 aces

Lily Curnow, 2 kills, 2 digs, 1 ace

Tessa Bartoszek, 2 kills, 1 assist, 2 digs, 1 ace

Elsie Williams, 10 kills, 10 assists, 1 block, 2 digs, 1 ace

Josie Anderson, 6 kills, 2 blocks, 3 digs

Haven VanSickle, 1 kill

Vienna Price, 15 assists, 4 digs, 1 ace

Kallie Evers-Margoni, 1 dig

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News Editor Jim Anderson contributed.