TVS Stumbles

The Twin Valley South volleyball team has had a strong start this season.  Winning their first 3 games of the season.  They did have to go to 4 sets in their match against Carlisle. But were able to win in three sets against Stivers and Bradford.  South has traditionally been strong in volleyball, but last season the bar has set higher with Miami East winning state in Division 3. So this year expect the competition to get tougher as they go deeper into the CCC schedule.

And this year’s team is a younger team than last season with the core of the team being juniors.  There are two sophomores on the roster and a senior.   The team will have to mature in a hurry.  And they have done so for the most part in the early going. Putting up some good numbers in their early victories.  Against Stivers  the team hammered them 25-12,25-8,25-9.  Gentry Gates had a good night with 8 Aces, 4 kills, and 12 assists.  Kaylee Johnson had 7 aces and was 10 of 10 on serve receive.  Paris Gruber had 5 kills. Finally Danielle Kreitzer had 4 aces and 4 digs.

Against Bradford (25-21, 25-11, 25-13), it was another player stepping up for the victory.  Skylar Lain had 7 digs and 10 kills. Paris Gruber had 3 aces, 6 digs, and 6 kills.  Gentry Gates had 11 digs and 11 assists. Taylor Kirkpatrick had 4 digs and 5 assists.  After the game Coach Roberts commented that she was impressed with the way that both Gentry Gates and Taylor Kirkpatrick distributed the ball in this game.

Next up for the Panthers was their second league foe of the season – Arcanum.  And the team stumbled for the first time this season.  The first set was a lackluster 25-14 loss where South never really got on track.  In the second set the team performed better.  But was constantly playing catch up.  Arcanum would go up by 2-3 points, South would tie. Arcanum would go up again, and South would catch up but could never pass Arcanum.  They never could get that big momentum swing to go ahead. Arcanum seemed to be able to get good set ups to spike the ball.  Meanwhile, South was weak on their returns. This set was closer though 25-23 in favor of Arcanum.

In the third match it looked like Arcanum was going to run away with it. But coach Roberts took a time out when South was behind 9-3 to stem the tide.  South battled their way back into game, but couldn’t get any closer than 3 points to Arcanum, finally losing the set and the match. It’s the first setback for the team this season, so now the team will see who the leaders are to get the team back in the win column.

Coach Roberts was asked for comment after the Arcanum game, “We didn’t have any ball control. Our issues piled up early on and just got more dismal. We never did get into sync with what we wanted to do. We had lack of execution and a multitude of errors. We couldn’t get the ball to the outside, which is where you want to get the ball. We have one senior, 2 sophomores, and the core is juniors. So we are not as young as one might think, but we are inexperienced at the varsity level of play.  We need to work on general volleyball skills. Their work effort needs to be there day in and day out at practice.”