MEDORA— The Crothersville and Medora volleyball teams gave their fans a lot to cheer about Thursday night, and when the last point went up on the scoreboard, the Tigers left the Hornets’ Nest with a 25-17, 25-22, 13-25, 19-25, 15-12 win.

In the fifth set, Medora jumped on top 5-1 on a kill by Brelee Underwood.

The Tigers then went on a 10-2 run to take control of the set. Brooklyn Bottorff had three straight kills to get Crothersville’s rally started, and Zoey Prince had a kill and Kendra Kelshaw served an ace for an 11-7 lead.

Lily Hatchett had back-to-back kills to cut Crothersville’s lead to 11-10. The Tigers took a 14-10 lead on a Medora passing error before Winnie Thompson and Madison Reece had kills for the Hornets, and the match point came on a passing error by the Hornets.

Tigers Coach Kristy Wright said it was good to see her team not give up after the Hornets won the third and fourth sets.

“I think us not giving up (was the key),” she said. “I think in previous games that we lost, we just kind of gave up, but we didn’t give up tonight. We came together as a team and we didn’t get down, or if we did the players helped bring the others up, so I think we really played as a team.”

Hornets Coach Hanna Hinderlider said, “I saw good improvement on their passing and kills, getting their digs up at least to where they are playable, even getting them to the setter to where we can set up one of our hitters to hit the ball the other way. I feel that was one of the improvements I saw tonight.”

The Tigers started out strong in the first set, taking a 12-2 lead. Prince got the offense going for the Tigers with a pair of aces, and Bottorff had four kills and Hayden pilgrim had two kills during the rally.

A kill by Pilgrim gave the Tigers a 17-8 lead before Medora went on a 6-2 run to close the gap to 19-14.

Kelshaw had a block for set point.

The start of the second set belonged to Medora’s Lily Hatchett as she served five aces as the Hornets took a 7-0 lead. Hatchett had a kill to put Medora on top 11-4 before Pilgrim served the Tigers into a 15-15 tie with three straight aces.

This set was also tied at 19-19 and 21-21 before the Tigers closed on a 4-1 rally with set point coming on a passing error by the Hornets.

The Tigers led 7-3 early in the third set before Medora put together 7-0 and 8-0 runs to lead 18-8. Hatchett had seven kills and Underwood served four aces during that part of the match.

Crothersville committed a service error for set point.

The fourth set was tied seven times before Medora took charge with a strong finish.

The Tigers pulled to within 21-19 of a tie before the Hornets scored the final four points with Hatchett serving aces for the final two points.

Hatchett, who served 11 aces said, “I was trying to find the holes in the back line.”

Underwood was 44-51-19 and Hatchett was 44-51-18 in attacks as the Hornets had 51 kills.

Hatchett said she feels like she has improved her attacks.

“Practicing is really helping me a lot, and just working with everyone is really helping. I think we need to work on our talking a little bit more.

“We’ve really improved from how we were talking at the beginning of the season, and we could still improve on that, and just work together as a team. Brelee, me and all the hitters did a good job talking tonight.”

The Hornets (1-5) will host Cannelton today (Saturday) at noon. “Our communication on the floor, we still need to improve on that. We still need to do a lot better on covering, but I feel like there is improvement there,” Hinderlider said.

Wright said, “We had a new rotation tonight. This was the first time playing a 5-1. We got rid of the 6-2. It was a new line up, a new rotation and they pulled it together, and worked together and made it happen.”

Bottorff, who topped the Tigers with 10 kills, said it was a good win over a county and sectional opponent.

“I think the Tigers did well staying moved, moving our feet and us talking, and saving our energy. Our energy stayed up in the first couple sets. We got down on ourselves, so we brought ourselves back up.

“We brought the energy back; we brought the smiles back. It was honestly a good match for Medora and for us. We still need to work on our defense, and our hitting, but I think we played really well tonight.”

Both teams struggled with serve receive at times, resulting in Crothersville serving 27 aces and Medora serving 21. Kelshaw served seven aces, Bottorff five and Pilgrim and Prince four each for the Tigers.

Underwood served seven aces for the Hornets.

Crothersville (2-5) will host Austin Friday night for alumni night, and former Crothersville volleyball player in attendance will be introduced before the varsity match.

Crothersville 3, Medora 2

Crothersville def. Medora 25-17, 25-22, 13-25, 19-25, 15-1.

Crothersville team serving 86-96-27.

Crothersville ace leaders: Kendra Kelshaw 7, Brooklyn Bottorff 5, Hayden Pilgrim 4, Zoey Prince 4

Crothersville kills leaders- Bottorff 10, Pilgrim 9, Kelshaw 7, team 131-147-30

Medora serving leaders: Winnie Thompson 20-20-1, Lily Hatchett 23-27-11, Brelee Underwood 0-0-0. Team 88-102-21

Medora kills leaders: Hatchett 44-51-18, Underwood 44-51-19, Madison Reece 17-21-8, team 120-145-51