ARCANUM – It was a little rocky at first, but Arcanum was able to claw out a win in three sets against Cross County Conference foe Tri-County North 25-20, 25-16, 25-15 on Tuesday.
Throughout the night Arcanum did a better job of getting the set, pass and spike. North played well in stretches, but the attacking style of Arcanum kept the Panthers back from the net in a defensive posture.
In the first set, both teams had some good runs. Up 11-5 at one point, Arcanum seemed to be on the way to grinding out a win, but Tri-County North got into a groove and made up ground. Suddenly after a 7-1 run by North, Arcanum was on the wrong end of a 15-13 score.
Arcanum took a timeout to get settled down and went to work with a 7-0 run of its own to go up. Now it was Tri-County North’s turn to take a timeout to break momentum, but Arcanum would not be denied and rallied until the Trojans won that first set 25-20.
Arcanum’s Audrey Heiser and Camille Pohl had good line play through most of the match. Several of their shots over the net went over the line in the first set, but they settled down and went to work in the next two sets.
Arcanum was playing well, but Tri-County North was self-destructing to start second set – spikes going into the net and sets going out of bounds. When it was 10-2, North took a timeout. The Panthers stopped making errors and made a good run to eventually close the gap to 18-12, but the Trojans put an end to this rally and finished strong with Heiser scoring the last two points for the Trojans.
In the last set, Arcanum had a little 6-1 run midway through the set to open some distance. It was 14-11 at the time the rally started with Jenna Haney getting an ace. This seemed to break the spirits of the Panthers, and the Trojans cruised in the last set for an easy victory 25-15.
“It was a win,” Arcanum volleyball coach Macey O’Dell said. “We did not come out as strong as I would’ve liked, but we played strong enough to win. We had high intensity against Greenville, and I wish we would have had more of that intensity tonight. We started slow and struggled to get momentum.
“It is important to get the pass and set – we work on that in practice. We want a fast-attack offense. We tell them all the time to be smart, be smart, be smart – think about your pass, your serve, your set, your spike. Everything we do on the court requires that you be smart. Having them always thinking helps to win the game for us.
“Both of our outside hitters, Audrey Heiser and Camille Pohl, have done an excellent job this year. They both had good games tonight. But our middle did a great job of setting them up – Jenna Haney, Trinity Lehman were both strong. All around we are a strong team, and that is what it took to win tonight.
Next up is another league matchup against National Trail. Then the Trojans will have a weekend off from playing, but volleyball is still on the agenda as the team will visit Wittenberg to watch a college volleyball team in action.
