By Dylan Wallace
Seymour volleyball head coach Angie Lucas wasn’t afraid to admit that in the first two sets Thursday night at Bloomington North, the Owls did not show up.
Seymour dropped the first set 25-23 and the second set 25-18.
“We played probably the worst that I’ve seen us play so far,” Lucas said.
But that quickly changed for Seymour due in large part to some adjustments made by Lucas and her staff.
They switched up the formation, switched up players’ positions, doing anything possible to try to take some momentum in the match.
But North still kept the upper hand. The Cougars had a 24-21 advantage in the third set, one point shy of sweeping the Owls.
Seymour refused to go home and fought off four straight match points to come back and win the third set 27-25.
“Honestly, it was just courage and guts,” Lucas said. “We just did not make any errors in that stretch, and that allowed us to stay in the match.”
The fourth set was another close one, but Seymour was able to prevail 25-23 and force a deciding fifth set.
From there, the Owls soared and rode their momentum to win the fifth set handily 15-5 to complete the monumental comeback on the road.
“We had a ton of momentum after that fourth set,” Lucas said. “We didn’t look as tired as what Bloomington North looked. I felt like we were just playing off adrenaline at that point. We might’ve been as tired, but we sure didn’t look as tired.”
Lucas credits the fans and students who came to enemy territory to cheer on the squad.
“We have a great group of followers,” Lucas said. “They helped us, and our young kids behind us on the bench were screaming their lungs out to try to help us out. It was a great environment.”
Olivia Fish led the way for Seymour with 24 kills, Cali Cummings added 16 and Greer Henry had five. In serving, Henry and Paige Lawrence each had two aces, and Fish had one.
Addi Lemon led the team in assists with 44, and Fish led the team in digs with 15.
The JV team lost 25-19, 25-22 before varsity took the floor, and Seymour’s freshman team won in three sets 25-22, 23-25, 15-12.
With the win, Seymour improved to 4-1 on the season and will play multiple games today at the Brownstown Central Invitational, starting with a match against Trinity Lutheran at 9 a.m.
“Volleyball is a momentum sport, so we need to come out on Saturday and be ready to play from the beginning of the match,” Lucas said. “We cannot do what we did at Bloomington North and expect to win against Trinity. We have to come out strong in the beginning.”