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After the contest, Edwards, who has already committed to play
volleyball at Lincoln Land Community College next year, gave credit
to her teammates. “We couldn’t do it without our passes and our
sets, and they were good tonight, so it all just came together.”
When asked if 16 kills are a career high, the outside hitter
responded, “Yeah, I think it’s up there close to it.”
Williamsville Head Coach Stacey Carlson was also very focused on the
team effort and noted how hard the ladies work. "We prepare to work
hard, we work hard in practice and we come out to work hard in
matches. We are going to continue to get better with the things we
know we are good at and we are going to work on the things that we
know we are not very good at right now, so hopefully we are just
going to get better from here,” said Carlson.
It is early in the season and with Carlson’s team off to a 2-0
start, the coach has already done a little switching things up and
so far the changes are working well. “I did a little bit of
switching last week (the Lady Bullets defeated St. Teresa to open
their season) so we are still trying to get used to some of those
roles.
"We’ve got some girls that have moved from hitting spots to other
hitting spots that are wanting the ball to be fed to them a little
bit more to get more swings. So we are going to continue to work on
that, which is awesome, the hitters that want the ball,” said
Carlson.
"Not being able to pinpoint her team down to any one strength or
weakness, Carlson stated, "We kind of roll together as a team.”
A team that on Tuesday night fell quickly behind in game one to the
Lady Toppers 6-2 before battling back to tie the score at 8-8. The
Lady Bullets then went on a 7-0 run, topping the Lady Toppers 15-8
at this point.
Next, it was Mount Pulaski turning the tables and going on a 7-0
run, tying the game at 15-15 as Williamsville’s Bridget Rhodes hit
the ball into the net. Rhodes redeemed herself with a kill on the
next possession and the Lady Bullets took a 16-15 lead and never
looked back.
Another kill by Rhodes gave Williamsville a 20-17 lead. The Lady
Bullets did everything right while earning the final points of the
set, all the way down to the last point scored on a service ace by
Edwards. Williamsville won the first set by a score of 25-18.
The second set was much closer and way more intense as neither team
was able to take a commanding lead and keep it. Mount Pulaski again
jumped out to an early lead, 6-4 this time. The Lady Toppers even
managed to stretch the lead to 13-8, but the Lady Bullets still had
plenty of fight left in them.
A couple kills by Edwards would spark the Bullet offense and before
long Williamsville was right back in it, only trailing 14-12.
Ashleigh McDermott would come up big with her first kill of the
evening to pull the Lady Bullets to within one point, 17-16 now the
Mount Pulaski lead. Williamsville then tied the score at 17-17,
after a great effort by Mount Pulaski’s Alexandra Beckers to save
the ball fell just short of the net.
The next volley for a point went back and forth for what seemed like
an eternity and ended with Mount Pulaski getting called for being in
the net and this would give Williamsville their first lead of the
second set, 18-17. Rhodes extended the Lady Bullets lead 19-17 as
her hit went off the two Mount Pulaski defenders and wound up out of
bounds.
Mount Pulaski refused to give up or give in though, as Fitzpatrick
slammed the ball between two Lady Bullets in the back row and then
Sidney Craig hit the ball into the net for Williamsville and the
game was once again tied, 19-19 the score.
The intensity level increased at this point with the two tough teams
battling back and forth, literally point for point, from here until
the score rested at 24-24.
Appropriately it was Edwards serving the last two points and as
Mount Pulaski committed the final two errors of the set,
Williamsville was able to claim the 26-24 victory and walk away with
the win.
The Lady Bullets are off to a 2-0 start this season, while Mount
Pulaski falls to 0-1 to start the season.
[to top of second column] |
Mount Pulaski Head Coach Donna Dulle offered these thoughts
following the loss. “I thought we had a couple good swings. I think
we need to be able to communicate more, we have to be better
offensively, just lots of improvement and I think we need to just
get to know each other better.
"You can tell they (Williamsville) are a senior laden team and they
played well together, but we still had a chance to beat them,” said
Dulle. "We just did some things that we should have done a little
bit better. Some things we did well.
"I thought Morgan May did a great job at the net for us and
Alexandra Beckers did a good job setting,” added Dulle. Beckers, a
wicked lefty, was also called on to hit the ball. "We need to work
on getting the ball better to her,” said Dulle of Beckers. “She’s
got some pretty good swings.”
Dulle also noted the play of two other key starters. "Skylar Hayes
and Abigail Fitzpatrick had a couple good swings early. They’ve got
to bring more to the table for us right now,” Dulle said of the two
sophomores who also saw time as varsity starters last season.
“Passing is good,” Dulle continued. “I think their weakness is
probably where they are attacking the ball, like making better shots
at hitting. Our middles probably need to work just harder in
practice. Morgan May works her butt off all the time,” Dulle
continued.
"I’ve been working Alex Clemons from outside to right side. We just
couldn’t get the ball to the right side enough, I didn’t think
tonight for some reason.
"We played smart sometimes and then we would let balls drop. We
kinda broke down a little bit. So they’ve just got to be able to
come back. That’s just part of being mature. Our players who were
freshmen last year are stepping up and you can see they are a little
more mature than they were last season. By the end of this season I
want them to be seasoned.”
Finally Dulle noted it’s early in the season and things are just
beginning to take shape. "It’s our first game and it’s really hard
to tell where you’re at. You know you practice for three weeks
against each other and against the junior varsity, and you just
cannot tell.
Well, now we know there are some good hitters out there,” she said.
"We have to learn to play better defense and learn to come back in
transition and hit the ball at them.”
The Lady Toppers will be back in action Thursday night in Athens at
6:00 p.m.
Meanwhile, Williamsville will undoubtedly be a team to watch this
season. The past two seasons the Lady Bullets traveled deep into
post season volleyball action, falling two years ago in the
sectional final and then falling just short of a state berth last
season. Their exit in the super sectionals last year still stings
and Coach Carlson admitted "that was a tough one.” "That gets
brought up a lot,” Carlson said.
"I feel like the girls have a lot of pressure because as you can
tell from the starting lineup, there are a lot of seniors. A lot of
them were on that team last year and have played. A lot of those
same seniors were sophomores and played on the team two years ago
when we lost in the sectional final. I feel like we are just at a
pressure moment right now. We really need to not play with pressure.
We just need to play. We are a good team and we just need to play.
So we are going to work through some of that, too. I mean it’s just
a constant reoccurrence of we had a great team last year but we are
not the same team. So we have to make this team just as good as last
year’s team and we’re going to continue to do that because we are
going to work hard in practice,” Coach Carlson said.
Williamsville will host Pleasant Plains Thursday night in
volleyball. The Lady Bullets will also be returning to Mount Pulaski
the weekend of September 16 and 17 to take part in the Fall Festival
Tournament.
Meanwhile the Lady Bullets Junior Varsity downed the Lady Toppers
Junior Varsity Tuesday night 18-25, 25-15 and 25-15 to improve to
2-0 on the season as well.
[Teena Lowery]
Mount Pulaski stats
Abigail Fitzpatrick 4 kills 8 digs
Alex Clemons
Alexandra Beckers 3 kills 5 digs
Morgan May 1 dig
Paige Stewart
Skylar Hayes 7 kills 10 digs
Kenzie Lock (libero) 2 digs
Isabella Wade 3 digs
Williamsville stats
Bridget Rhodes 4 kills
Caitlin Beaver
Ashleigh McDermott 1 kill
Ally Karras
Leah Musselman
Delaney Edwards 16 kills 9 digs
Maggie Sorenson (libero) 1 kill 6 digs
Sidney Craig 3 kills 2 digs
Laney Flynn 1 dig
Writer’s Note:
It is a small world after all. After the match the Hayes and Edwards
families were spotted visiting with each other, as childhood friends
Steve Hayes and Rick Edwards, both graduates of MPHS (Class of ’84),
had daughters facing off against each other on the court. Both are
stellar athletes but on this particular night it was Edwards taking
the spotlight with her 16 kills, 9 digs and countless service
points, much to the delight of her proud grandparents, Rich and
Marilyn Edwards of Mount Pulaski.
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