There’s an old saying in sports, “Take them one game at a time.” That slogan seems to fit the Seymour volleyball team perfectly.
The Owls defeated Hauser 25-12, 25-22, 25-16 in the Lloyd E. Scott Gymnasium Monday night to push their win streak to five straight and bring their record to 6-9.
Coach Angie Lucas says she is pleased with the Owls’ progress, but adds that the team still has a long way to go.
“We’re working on it daily,” she said. “There are things that we have to improve on. We did see some progress this weekend (winning the Connersville Invite), but we’re not where we need to be.”
The Owls had to postpone two weeks of matches at the beginning of the season because of Covid-19 and didn’t play their first match until Aug. 27. Hauser was also under quarantine for two weeks and returned to action last Friday and now stands 7-2 for the season.
“It’s hard to make up two weeks of lost time,” Lucas said. “It’s tough, so we’re not in good physical shape yet. We’re trying to get into game-like condition. We want to work on playing consistently at a high level, so we’re not competing there yet.”
Monday night the Owls scored the first three points of the first set and led all the way. Back-to-back kills by Olivia Fish put the Owls on top 5-1, and later Breanna Lawrence had a kill, and followed up by serving a pair of aces to put Seymour on top 13-6. Lauren Knieriem made kills on the final two points of the set.
In the second set the Owls had to overcome the inconsistency Lucas was talking about as the score was tied nine times and the lead changed hands five times before Fish and Cali Cummings came through with kills on the final two points for Seymour.
Knieriem served the Owls into a 7-0 lead in the third set. Back-to-back aces by Maggie Connell raised the score to 13-4 and the Owls continued to build their lead and recorded match point on an attacking error by the Jets.
The Owls went 3-0 at Connersville and Lucas said, “It was a good bonding day. We were able to spend some time in the gym and on the bus ride going up and just be together.
“That’s a big part of this, learning to play with the person beside you, and what their tendencies are and what you can do to help them.
“It’s a big learning process right now, and we’re young.”
Two freshmen and three sophomores see a lot of varsity playing time.
“I looked out there one time this weekend and we had sophomore, sophomore, sophomore across the front line,” she said, “and they’re competing against seniors, so again it’s a learning process for them.”
The Owls are still working hard to catch up.
“We’re working on fundamentals more than anything in practice right now and conditioning, being able to play at a high level and in good shape.” Lucas said. “We’re just not in that game-like shape yet, knowing where we’re supposed to be on the court at all times is a plus and we’re not there yet.”
Seymour (6-9) was 89-98-38 in attacks with Fish 34-34-19, Cummings 14-15-3 and Connell 12-15-6. The Owls were 67-73-10 in serving with Knieriem 21-21-2 and Fish 13-13-3.
Seymour’s junior varsity played its first match of the fall and topped Hauser 25-13, 25-15. The JV was twice in quarantine because of the virus.