By Drew Terhall

DailyAdvocate.com

BRADFORD — The Lady Railroaders battled in all three sets against Cedarville, but fell to them 3-0 in their first home game of the season on Aug. 21.

Head coach Alisha Patty said it’s sort of a restart for the team as they are playing five freshmen and have two freshmen setters to go along with their upper classmen.

The team is still coming together as a whole as everyone is settling into their roles. Patty said the seniors did struggle a bit with being leaders, but they are starting to get comfortable in those roles.

“They’ve (seniors) done really well with stepping up this year and being put in that leader role,” Patty said. “I’m happy with how they’re coming together as a team. There’s little things that we need to work on.”

Bradford lost the first set, 25-13, and the second set, 25-10. The team had some stretches of mistakes that gave Cedarville the momentum to take control.

The team was able to string together some plays to hang around, but couldn’t get enough momentum going their way.

In the third set, the team hung around and kept it close at the beginning. It was a 5-5 tie to start the set. The Lady Railroaders looked more comfortable and started to make more plays than mistakes.

Eventually, the serving game for Cedarville carried them to a 25-14 set win to win the match. Bradford didn’t make it easy on them as they sustained rallies when they were able to get their serve receive in place.

It was the second game of the season for Bradford after they lost to Houston on the road Aug. 19. They have a home game against Botkins on Aug. 24 before they play in the Greenville Federal Invite on Aug. 26.

Bradford is one of the handful of schools playing this week before the invite. Patty said getting these early games in eases them into the season so they can hit the ground running during and after the invite.

“All of my girls, even my seniors down to my freshmen, are nervous nellies. Getting these games in, getting them playing time gets them settled in so that when we do go to the Federal Invite, hopefully we’re relaxed and play our game like we know how and come out with some wins,” Patty said.

Patty also said they still have a long season ahead with plenty of opportunities to get better and come out strong.

The game against Botkins on Aug. 24 is set for a 5:30 p.m. JV start.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]