Trinity Lutheran’s Bailey Bonde (18) and Ava Blomenberg try to block an attack by Crothersville’s Grace Smith during Tuesday’s match.
Trinity Lutheran rolled past Crothersville 25-6, 25-6, 25-12 in varsity volleyball action in the Bollinger Athletic Complex on Tuesday night.
The Cougars used aggressive serving to pull ahead in all three sets. The Tigers trailed only 6-4 in the first set before the Cougars closed out the set on a 19-2 run.
The second set was tied at 2, and after the Cougars gained control of the serve, Maddie Adams served four straight aces for a 7-2 lead. The Cougars stretched their lead to 13-2 before the Tigers scored again, and Adams had two more aces late in the set.
Trinity coach Janet VanLiew said she liked the aggressive serving by her team.
“We’ve spent a lot of time on being aggressive and consistent with our serves, so I thought that came through today,” she said. “We’re pretty good hitting the zones. We just haven’t been as consistent as we need to be. Tonight, I thought it was a pretty good serving match.”
VanLiew said she had a lot of players in the match and that they performed well.
“I felt like we maintained the level that we needed to. We had a lot of players playing in different positions, which required a lot of communication, and I thought we came through and did what we needed to do. We were trying some different types of sets and different tempo of sets, and that was going to lead to some errors,” she said.
The Tigers held a 5-4 lead in the third set on an attacking error by the Cougars before Trinity went on a 7-0 run to lead the rest of the way.
Makenna Newberry served an ace for the Tigers to cut the difference to 11-9, but that was as close as the Tigers could get. Crothersville’s final point came on an attack by Grace Smith to make it a 23-12 score.
“I thought as the match went on, we got a little bit more confident in ourselves keeping balls off the floor by playing some defense,” Tigers head coach Scott Sage said. “We weren’t transitioning very well. It’s one of the things I talked to the team about. We didn’t transition on defense very well. We left some gaps, and with the pace that Trinity plays at, it’s hard to recover if we don’t transition as a team together.”
Sage spoke about some of the minor mistakes the Tigers made.
“We may have a kid in the back row transition and a kid in the front row not transition or we would have a front-row kid transition and the back-row kid would not transition, and it created gaps where we would normally have coverage,” he said.
“I thought we served pretty well. It has always been kind of a strength for us this season,” Sage said. “Serve receiving continues to be our opportunity to get better at, and they serve very well. Kudos to Trinity. They’re very good at serving. I’ve just got young kids in spots that they’re learning on the fly. Sometimes, it’s brutal to watch, and it’s really cool to see when they come through and make a play.”
The Cougars (12-9) will travel to Hauser on Thursday, and the Tigers (3-18) will play in Edinburgh that night.
Trinity Lutheran statistics
Serving- Addison Darlage 13-13-3. Emerson Warren 6-6-0. Laura Roeder 9-10-5. Presley Meyer 12-12-7.
Attacks- Ava Blomenberg 13-13-5, Drew Hubbard 10-10-5. Addison Darlage 8-9-5.
Assists- Addison Darlage 23
Digs- Maddie Adams 10. Kiley Zabel 9. Laura Roeder 8.
Crothersville statistics
Serving- Grace Smith 6-6-1, Elayna Ord 6-7-1
Hitting- Brooklyn Bottorff 15-19-2, Hayden Pilgrim 11-12-2
Setting- Makenna Newberry 22-22-2, Smith 24-24-3
Digs- Bottorff 12, Pilgrim 5