Panthers take both sets in victory over Carrollton
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CARROLLTON - So far for new Jersey Panthers volleyball head coach, Justin Wilhite he wants his players to battle and keeps a positive attitude through every game.
So far, so good.
The Panthers defeated the Carrollton Lady Hawks 25-22, 25-22 in a non-conference game at Carrollton Grade School on Tuesday night. Jersey improves their record to 5-1.
“My first meeting with the girls we had three things we talked about changing the culture of the program,” Wilhite said. “Playing with heart, playing with pop (power of praise). The third was to grind it out. They just hung in there and hung with it. We have eight seniors who are very driven and felt very doubted. They’re just trying to prove the best they can, and so far they’re doing a darn good job of that.”
The Lady Hawks dropped to 1-3 on the season.
Carrollton fell behind early in the first set and midway through the second, but rallied to give Jersey scares. Ultimately, for head coach Daniel Campbell, he believes the service game was his team’s downfall.
“Our service game is our main struggle right now. Until we get that cleaned up we have the heart to battle all day long, but we’re never going to beat anybody if we can not get our serving under control,” Campbell said. We had way too many.”
The Lady Hawks were down 19-10 in the first set and battled back to 24-22, and in the second they were behind 22-18 before tying the game up. Campbell was understandably happy with the never say die effort his players displayed.
“I love their fight. They never give up,” Campbell said. “We came back and battled. That’s what I love about them, but we have to clean up the little stuff.”
Jersey will rely mostly on an experienced senior class with good depth of eight seniors along with sophomore multi-sport athletes, Clare Breden and Abigail Droege.
“Those girls will continue to grind. We got girls on the bench who are hungry and push [the starters] in practice, and that’s the beautiful thing about that too,” Wilhite said. “All the girls have bought into that level of competitiveness. Support, but also challenge each other.”
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