Edwardsville volleyball girls grasp momentum to trounce Belleville Althoff
EDWARDSVILLE – Once even when the best volleyball teams get some momentum, they can be difficult to start.
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Edwardsville's team being such an example; the Tigers out to a big lead in the second game of their Tuesday evening match at Lucco-Jackson Gym against Belleville Althoff and going on to defeat the Crusaders 25-17, 25-12 to take their record to 12-3 on the season. Althoff went to 8-5 on the year with the loss.
“I was pleased with the girls; they were very consistent all night,” said Tiger coach Jami Parker. “Not a lot of unforced errors on our part; they played really clean from start to finish. Our serve-receive gave Rachel (Verdun) a lot of options and Rachel ran an absolutely beautiful offense tonight. She had a lot of options and ran them well.
“Our hitters were hitting clean tonight. I was really happy with the blocking. We had some really good touches – that was the best blocking we've had here for awhile. They were playing really consistent, playing really clean. Rachel had choices to run the offense a little bit; that helped open up the net a little.”
“They put the pressure on us,” said Crusader coach Sara Dietrich, “and we crumbled. We couldn't handle it tonight. I was hoping we could come out and compete and have a good match against hem and we showed it in the beginning of the first set, and then they flipped the switch and turned it on and we turned it off.
“That's a hard lesson and I hope my girls learn from it.”
The opening game started out fairly even, both sides having the lead at one point in the game before Edwardsville pulled away slightly and built up momentum to win the game. In Game 2, the Tigers got out to an 8-1 lead behind some good hitting from Shelbey Saye and blocking from Kate Martin, then building the lead up to 15-3, forcing the Crusaders to call their second timeout of the game.
The timeout didn't do much to stem the Tiger momentum as the lead went out to 20-3 before the Crusaders scored again, getting on a six-point run to cut the lead to 20-9 before a Martin spike ended the run. The two teams traded points until the Tigers put the match away when a Althoff attack went wide.
Rachel Pranger led the Tigers with 10 kills, with Martin adding three blocks and Verdun 16 assists. Saye had 10 points on serve on the night with four aces, with Megan Woll adding nine points and an ace.
The Tigers return to Southwestern Conference play with a 4:30 p.m. Thursday match at home against East St. Louis before hosting Cor Jesu at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 28.
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