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Juniors Allie Downing (7) and Kayla Pearson (8) looks to block a kill
attempt by a Bethel player
Thursday in Cross County Conference action
at Tri-Village. The Patriots lost in four sets, 3-1, to
go to 1-6 on
the season. CNO Photos by George Starks
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Patriots start
strong, finish weak against Bees
By George Starks
NEW MADISON- Coming in with a 1-6 record, Tri-Village was looking to
put its second win on the board Thursday against Bethel.
The Lady Bees had other plans.
The Patriots started off like a ball of fire, dropping a 25-9 bomb on
Bethel in the opening set as the Bees looked like they had seen a can
of Raid.
After that, no one knew where the Patriots went but they weren’t at The
Battleground playing volleyball.
In the following sets, it was Bethel by the scores of 25-15, 25-18 and
25-19.
In the second set, the margin of loss was only 10 points but it was
never that close.
“We started that first game real strong,” said Pats coach Eric
Burkhart. “We were all together and we played well. We played well as a
team and just did everything right. We couldn’t do anything wrong.”
Unfortunately for T-V, volleyball is won in three sets, not one.
So what happened?
“The only thing I can think of is that we’re still a young team (no
seniors)” said Burkhart. “We made some mistakes and we kinda get down
on ourselves. That’s something that’s going to take time to work
through. So once we work through the mental aspect of it, and we will
get there, we’ll have it going on and I hope we get there pretty
shortly.”
In the third and fourth sets, the Patriots did come together,
giving Bethel all it could handle and holding several leads in the
final set.
In the end, it wasn’t enough.
“We hung in there with them in the third and fourth sets,” Burkhart
admitted. “I think the young mistakes hurt us. The short game got us
and we’ll have to work on that tomorrow.”
While the Patriots serves seemed to be spot on, it was the serve
receive that left a lot to the imagination.
“Serve-receive is usually our strong point,” said Burkhart. “Usually
our serve-receive is real strong. I don’t know what’s going on there
but we have to address that as well. That shouldn’t be a hard fix for
these girls. We weren’t squaring up to the ball and we weren’t moving
our feet. Our passing was weak and that’s not the norm for us.”
At the net, the Patriots looked sharp at times.
“Our net play is getting better,” said Burkhart. “Allie Downing (four
kills, three blocks) is in her first year of playing volleyball but
she’s a real quick learner and she’s getting better. We need to start
swining at the ball and stop tipping so much.”
Autaum Moore added five kills while Kara Hollinger chipped in with 11
digs and Payge Mallott had six assists.
Now 1-6 on the season, Burkhart had looked for better things at the
start on the season.
“I expected a lot better,” said the first year varsity coach. “We will
work through this and see if we can’t come out of it.”
Tri-Village will hots Stivers and Troy Christian today in a tri match.
The Patriots junior varsity fell in three sets, 14-25, 25-22 and 14-25.
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Sophomore Kara Hollinger goes down for a return off a received serve.
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