The Crothersville volleyball team split a pair of matches last week.
The Tigers won 25-18, 15-25, 25-18, 25-19 at Madison Christian Thursday night, then opened their home and Southern Athletic Conference schedule Friday against Borden and lost 25-20, 25-11, 25-12.
Crothersville got off to a good start against Borden as Zoey Prince had three straight aces to give her team an 8-7 lead, and they held a 9-8 lead on an ace by Hayden Pilgrim.
Borden then went on a 9-1 run for a 17-10 lead before Bottorff came up with a block to stop the Braves’ string of points.
Borden held a 19-13 lead when the Tigers gained possession of the serve and Kendra Kelshaw served a pair of aces for a 19-15 score, and later Pilgrim had a block for a point to cut Borden’s lead to 21-18.
The Tigers started off hot in the second set with three aces from Maddie Smith putting the Tigers on top 4-1.
The score was tied 7-7 when Borden went on a 12-1 run to lead 19-8.
Borden scored the first four points of the third set to lead all the way.
Bottorff had a kill and served an as late in the set, giving the Tigers back-to-back points for just the second time in this set.
Varsity coach Kristy Wright was out of town last week, so assistant Coach Alivia Coles coached the two matches. Cole spoke after Friday’s matchup.
“Borden is a pretty intense team,” she said. “They came at us a little harder than we had (Thursday). I think with it being the second game, and our head coach not being here, we were just trying to get all our jitters out.
“I was really proud of them for the way they kept their attitudes up. I talked to them before the game about leaving the last point behind them and I thought they did that pretty well.”
The Tigers served 11 aces against Borden, including seven in the first set.
Coles said she felt like the Tigers served aggressive at the start of the match,
“Brooklyn is one of our stronger servers and we plan to use her in that way a lot this season.”
Coles said, “We need to work a lot on our serve receive, which is something we’ve been working on at every practice, but its’ somethings we need to keep focusing on.”
Borden had 22 aces.
Coles said the Tigers played well at Madison Christian.
“At Madison we did really well communicating and moving our feet. All the girls stayed down low the whole time, made sure their passes were getting to the target where they wanted them to go, and I was really proud of them.”
The Tigers were 88-92-11 in serves with Bottorff 21-22-9 and Prince was 19-20-1.
The Tigers were 106-127-19 in attacks with Prince 27-34-1, Bottorff 23-30-7 and Pilgrim 21-23-4.
Crothersville will host West Washington tomorrow evening with the JV game starting at 6 o’clock.
Thursday
Borden def. Crothersville 25-20, 25-12, 25-11
Crothersville serving leader: Zoey Prince 9-9-3
Attack leaders: Brooklyn Bottorff 10-10-3, Kendra Kelshaw 6-7-3
Friday
Crothersville def. Madison Christian 25-18, 15-25, 52-18, 25-19
Crothersville serving: Bottorff 21-11-9, Prince 19-20-1, team 88-92-11
Attacks: Prince 27-34-1, Bottorff 23-30-7, Hayden Pilgrim 21-23-4