Medora’s volleyball team had a hard time preventing Rising Sun’s serves and attacks from hitting the floor in the opening match of the Class 1A Sectional in the Bollinger Athletic Complex Tuesday night.
As a result the Shiners advanced with a 25-8, 25-8, 25-11 win.
Hornets coach Missy Stewart said her team may have been a little nervous and once it began making mistakes it was hard to get things under control.
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“We’ve been telling them all season and they don’t understand that they have to move and they can’t stand up,” Stewart said. “When somebody makes contact with the ball they like to stand up and then you see them make these dives and they’re just out of position.”
The Hornets did not respond to Rising Sun’s hits.
“They’re not moving, they’re not talking,” she said. “I saw at least two or three balls that were out, but we didn’t tell our player that it was. So they were just unforced errors on us. On serve receive they’ve got to learn to move their feet and pass the ball.”
The Shiners got off to early leads in all three sets.
In the opening set, Rising Sun held leads of 11-1, 18-4, and 23-6 before the Hornets were able to score back-to-back points on a kill by Keyla Newby followed by an ace from Maria Cobb. The Shiners then scored the final two points to win the set.
Rising Sun built up a 14-2 lead in the second set before Abby Wayman served four straight points for the Hornets. Rising Sun pulled away and gained set point on a kill by Grace Bujak.
Medora (5-14) fell behind 12-4 in the third set, with an ace by Cobb pulling the score to within 12-6.
The Shiners held a 19-11 lead before scoring the final six points for the win.
Wayman was 10-13-3 and Newby was 10-14-4 in attacks for the Hornets.
“They were making silly mistakes,” Stewart said, “they were not communicating, backing each other up. Same thing on the balls that were out. That was an easy point for the other team.
“When we finally did get a pass up our setter just didn’t get it out to where it needed to be so we were having to do a lot of free balls, and you just can’t run a lot of free balls at this level.”
Wayman was 8-8-2 and Cobb was 5-5-2 in serves.
“I have no problem with our serving.” Stewart said. “Our serving is pretty good. A couple (errors) here and there that’s fine. It’s the serve receive, and we’ve been working with them all season. They’re fine in practice, and they’ll move and stuff. They get in a game and they forget what to do. It’s almost like some of them go into a panic mode.”
The sectional resumes Thursday with Trinity Lutheran meeting Oldenburg Academy at 6 p.m., followed by Crothersville battling Jac-Cen-Del.
West Washington drew a bye and faces Rising Sun at 11 a.m. Saturday.