Ex-Beatle Ringo Starr had a smash hit in 1971 called “It Don’t Come Easy.”
That title could very well be the song in 2008 that best fits the York volleyball team's struggles up to this point of the season.
Nothing is coming easy.
On Saturday the York girls went 1-2 at the Grand Island Northwest Invitational and in doing so recorded a win over the Lexington Minutemaids. This came after lopsided losses to both Hastings and Class C-1 No. 2 Columbus Scotus.
In the fifth place match against Lexington, York dropped the first game 24-26, then fought back to win the next two 25-22 and 25-22.
Following her team’s win, York head coach Stacey Hall breathed a sigh of relief, “It’s ridiculous, it’s like pulling teeth to get a win this year,” she said. “I don’t think it’s as much a confidence thing as it is that I think they make a mistake and get scared to make another one, and then they don’t play aggressively. This was a huge win for us to get going into next week as we play Hastings on Tuesday at Hastings, Seward on Thursday and then the Seward Invite on Saturday.”
An example of what Hall was alluding to came in the first game of the fifth place battle with Lexington.
York had dominated the early portion of the match, jumped to a 9-3 lead and was getting everyone involved. Lexington chipped away and trimmed the lead to 11-10, but the Dukes used an ace block by Michaela Stuhr and a tip kill from Tara Nienhueser to push the lead back to 19-15. Then the Lexington team went on a 7-3 run to forge a 22-22 tie. York aided the run with three unforced errors.
An exchange of points made it 23-23, and when Jordan Knight scored on the tip kill the Dukes were at set point.
Lexington denied the Dukes the win in game one when Maisie O’Meara drilled a kill and back-to-back ace blocks by Cicely Batie and Carrie Beth Reynolds gave the Minutemaids the first game win.
In the second game it appeared the Minutemaids might put the Dukes away in two games as they led 21-18.
But Brittani Smith picked up two of her seven kills in the match and Alexa Rosenau had one of her team high 11 to tie the set at 22-22.
Lexington suffered back-to-back serve receive errors to hand the Dukes a 25-22 win.
It was another nip-and-tuck battle in game three as York trailed 17-14 before  Smith, Knight and Nienhueser helped spark a 5-2 run and tie the score at 19-19.
York got another kill from Knight, who finished with eight in the match, and an ace serve from junior Jen Harlow to lead 24-21. Nienhueser put the ‘W” on the scoreboard with her eighth kill of the match.
As a team the Dukes unofficially pounded 42 kills to 27 for the Minutemaids. Lexington had eight ace serves to three for the Dukes. The Maids also had eight ace blocks to York’s four.
Hastings 25, 25  York 15,15
York kept it close early, but at about the 15 to 17 point mark both games took a turn against the Dukes as the Tigers went on runs of 9-2 to finish game one and 9-3 to finish game two.
The Dukes were led by Stuhr with seven kills, while Knight and Rosenau each had four.  Stuhr also added two ace blocks and Rosenau finished with one.
Columbus Scotus 25, 25  York 15, 10
Class C1 No. 2 Scotus allowed the Dukes to stay around in game one, as a Rosenau kill and a Scotus error made it 12-8. The Shamrocks slowly started to pull away as they extended their lead to 20-12 with an 8-4 run, then three York errors over the final four points gave the “Rocks” a 1-0 lead.
Scotus jumped to a 7-1 lead in game two and never looked back. They closed out the match on a 15-3 run after the York team had trimmed the margin to 10-5. York was paced at the net by Rosenau with four kills. Nienhueser registered three ace blocks. Stuhr and Knight had an ace serve each.
York (3-8) will be at Hastings Tuesday night.