BROWNSTOWN
The Brownstown Central volleyball team dominated Charlestown and Clarksville in all areas to post a pair of Mid-Southern Conference wins Saturday.
The Braves opened with a 25-16, 25-20, 25-13 win over Charlestown, and after the Pirates topped Clarksville, the Braves cruised to a 25-5, 25-6, 25-7 victory over the Generals.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
Coach Jennifer Shade said her team has had to make adjustments in its rotations.
“We’re going through a rough time right now,” she said. “We’re without our setter (Reagan Nuss) so we’ve had to make a lot of adjustments with some players playing some (different) positions. It’s just going to take us some time to get in the flow.
“These were good games for us today to get prepared for the week ahead.”
The Braves had a strong game at the net against Charlestown with 36 kills on 74 for 89 attacking. Kendra McCory had 14 kills, Jennifer Pence 10 kills and Kayla Guthrie had seven kills.
Emily Singleton topped the team in serving with 13-for-13 with four aces, Erin Singleton was 11-12-1 and McCory was 9-10-1.
The Braves had a much easier time against the Generals by jumping to early leads in all three sets.
In the first set, the Braves broke a 2-2 tie as Zoe Stuckwisch served her team into a 10-2 lead. The Braves increased their lead to 17-3 and kept the pressure on until the final point.
Brownstown was leading 8-5 in the second set before McCory served several aces to help her team increase its lead to 22-5. McCory served 16 aces in this match.
The Braves dominated from the start in the third set by taking a 4-1 lead before building up a 17-3 advantage.
Senior Myka Keltz said although the Braves improved to 3-0 in the conference her team needs to improve its teamwork.
“We just took things a little more serious, and took (practices) at a quicker pace just to get back in the groove,” she said. “We just had to jump right into it.”
As defending 3A champions, the Braves set a high standard.
“I think we have a long way to go from last year to now,” Keltz said. “We have a lot of improvement, but it takes time and we’ve just got to keep practicing. We worked really well today and every day we play much better as a team and as the games go on.”
Shade agreed the Braves have a long way to go.
“I think when you don’t have your whole personnel, and you’re playing out of position it’s hard to get a flow,” Shade said, “and it’s hard for us to be really particular about things when we aren’t even in the right spot.”
Shade said it will take a little bit of time for everything to smooth out.
“We’re just waiting when we can come together as a whole,” she said, “but in the meantime we’re improving in all of our individual skills.”
McCory was 31-32-16 serving against Clarksville, Stuckwisch was 17-19-9 and Guthrie was 6-6-3.
Guthrie was 10-10-7, Jennifer Pence was 8-8-4 and McCory was 6-7-6 in attacks.
Shade said she was pleased with her team’s play at the net.
“We have a big front line and some really powerful hitters,” she said. “That will be one of the positives for us this season.
“Today we were able to place (serving) the ball and hit our zones, and used that as part of our offense, too. We were aggressive. We know our ball control is not perfect. A lot of times ball control just comes with playing continuously, and we didn’t have a chance to play a lot this summer. We’re just not as precise with our ball control as we need to be yet.”
The Braves (3-1 overall) will host Floyd Central Thursday night and will play in the Bloomington South Invite on Saturday.