SIDNEY – For the first time this season the Greenville volleyball team won a set on Tuesday as the Lady Wave hung tough in a 25-11, 22-25, 25-13, 25-20 loss at Sidney.
After starting the season losing in straight sets to Troy, Tippecanoe and Piqua, Greenville coach Chelsea Dowd was proud of her team’s effort against Sidney as the Wave continued to show improvement.
“Each match they come in with a little bit more energy and a little bit more confidence and a little bit more push to get it done,” Dowd said. “We’re very, very competitive. We keep up with really, really good teams. And sometimes in the second and third set we slowly start to dwindle out, and tonight we did not do that. We’re down two players – one surprisingly today – and we adjusted and we came out and we still managed to get things done. I could not be any more proud than I am right now.”
Sidney handily won the opening set of Tuesday’s match 25-11. Making matters worse, middle hitter Baylee Petry went down late in the set with an ankle injury that sidelined her for the rest of the night alongside the previously injured Shelby Herrmann.
Greenville overcame the adversity, though, and had its best set of the night in the second game.
From a 3-3 tie Greenville went on a 6-0 run that prompted a timeout from Sidney. Following the break the Lady Wave continued to pull away and built a 14-5 advantage, causing Sidney to use its second timeout.
From there Sidney began to battle back and scored six of the next seven points. The Yellow Jackets closed to within two points on multiple occasions, but the Wave held on for the 25-22 victory to tie the match at 1-1.
“They’re such a team, which is such a nice feeling for a coach because we lost Baylee after the first set, and then I could hear them when I was putting in the lineup saying, ‘OK, we’ve got it. This is what we’re going to do, and we’re going to get it done for each other,’” Dowd said. “They’re so positive with one another, and they really trust that somebody can step up and get the next thing done, and I think we’ve been missing that for a few years.”
The third set started out with Greenville and Sidney battling back and forth. But from an 11-9 lead, Sidney went on to score 14 of the next 18 points to win the game 25-13 and go up two sets to one.
Greenville again rose to the challenge in the fourth set, taking an early 13-7 lead. However, Sidney was able to regroup and went on a 10-1 run to regain the upper hand at 17-14. Greenville was able to tie the set at 17-17 and 18-18 but ultimately lost 25-20 to fall three games to one in the match.
“It’s hard to lose a good match in three sets, and we seem to do it a lot,” Dowd said. “We’re very, very close, but we just can’t push to get one set under our belt or a second set under our belt. And this is just such a good building match for us, especially because it was a different lineup than we’re used to so we know we can adjust in the face of adversity, but more than that it’s good for us to know that we can take a set from somebody and then close to taking another set.”
Greenville is now 0-4 overall and 0-4 in the GWOC this season. The Lady Wave will play host to Stebbins on Thursday to begin a three-match home stand that also includes home matches against Franklin Monroe on Saturday and Arcanum on Monday.
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