Tri-Village volleyball team loses season opener at Dixie

0

NEW LEBANON – Tri-Village’s volleyball team started its season on the road on Thursday with a match at Dixie, and when you play on the road you can’t afford to make many mistakes.

Although Tri-Village had the taller team, a shorter but more defensive Dixie kept the ball off the floor and put the Patriots on their heels for most of the match.

The Patriots had some good sets but could not get points off the sets as the ball tended to go deep or left or right when they sent it over the net.

The Patriots gifted a lot of points in the match. Still they won one set and showed spirit in the final set when they closed from nine points down to fall just short 25-22 in a four-set match, 25-18, 17-25, 25-16, 25-22.

Tri-Village’s best set of the night was the second one, of course. The Patriots were hitting their spikes inbounds early and ground out a win.

Dixie took a timeout when Tri-Village was up 13-9, but it didn’t have any effect as Tri-Village methodically drew out its lead.

Although Tri-Village had a few bad serves during this set, its accurate front line play made the difference against a smaller Dixie squad. But the Patriots were unable to carry this momentum forward into the third game.

In the first two sets, the team played even with the Greyhounds early. But inexplicably, in the last two sets the team spotted the Hounds an early lead and had to play from behind, something hard to do on the road.

But the team did show its potential in the last set. Dixie had some success sending pooch shots over top of the blockers. But the back line did a better job of anticipation and started to take this away.

The Patriots were down by nine points, 20-11, and a lot of teams would have called it a night at this point. But the team dug deep and went on a nice 6-1 run to close the gap.

And when the score was 24-22, Dixie was forced to take a timeout to get momentum back. Dixie was able to get the last point to end the night with the win, but the Patriots proved that they are not quitters.

“I was happy with their effort for the most part,” Tri-Village coach Chris Brewer said. “They could have given up at a couple of points, but they didn’t. We passed well, which was something I worried about coming into the game. But Dixie is a scrappy team. They covered the court very well. They were probably one of the better defensive teams we will see this season. We are still young at some of our core positions, but we can’t afford these slow starts – it happens sometimes even in practice. And we gave them a lot of points with our mistakes. But we expect some mistakes early in the season. I want to see how we come back this Saturday.

“We are in the Greenville Federal Invitational on Saturday. We will play Bradford in the first round. We did scrimmage them – so we know a little about them, and they know us. We will win if we are more consistent – it is OK to make a mistake as long as you don’t compound it and make it two mistakes. Finally, we have to put the ball away when we get a good pass and a good set. If we do this we will do well.”

.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}

Tri-Village’s Edie Morris goes up for a kill during a volleyball match against Dixie.
https://www.dailyadvocate.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/web1_Edie-Morris-WEB.jpgTri-Village’s Edie Morris goes up for a kill during a volleyball match against Dixie. J. C. Tilton | For The Daily Advocate

By J. C. Tilton

For The Daily Advocate

No posts to display