JEFFERSON —
In sports, the great teams make plays when they count the most. The Edgewood Warriors volleyball team was no exception Wednesday night as they outlasted host Jefferson, 20-25, 26-24, 25-16, 25-21. The match’s turning point occurred in the second game.
Having dropped the first game to the Falcons, the Warriors (16-2) were on the verge of going down 0-2 as they trailed Jefferson (5-14) 23-20. Following a timeout, Katie Thomas sent down a spike followed by another one by Judith Silvieus and the Warriors never looked back.
“For the first game and a half ,we didn’t play well because Jefferson did not allow us to,” Edgewood coach Dave Fowler said. “Our kids are mentally tough, we have great chemistry and we got big points when we needed it. Had we gone down two games that would have been really tough to dig out of.”
Edgewood tied the second game at 24 on a block by Silvieus, then got an ace serve two points later from Jaime Rogers. “(Rogers) is our big-point server,” Fowler said. “She sends good hard driving serves at you and then the next one drops more in the middle so it’s either driving straight at your head and you have to make that really tough pass or it drops short and you have to make a dive for it. She got 32 points for us one game. She generates a lot of good things of her serves.”
“Coach told us just to play our game, not to get down and not to worry about making mistakes,” senior Abby Pisano said.
“The big battle when you’re down is to play real passive because you’re afraid of making a mistake,” Fowler said. “ I always tell our girls we can’t be afraid of making a mistake, we have to be even more aggressive. When you’re in the twenties anything can happen, sometimes you win by luck, but if we can get into the twenties with teams we have a very good chance to win.”
Edgewood went up in game one, 4-0, and extended the lead to 8-3 before the Falcons got things going. Jefferson got the lead at 10-9 on a kill by Haley Allen. Later they took off on a 5-0 run to lead 18-14. Edgewood never got any closer than within three as the Falcons won 25-20.
“That first game is easily the best game first game of the year for us,” Jefferson coach Don Palm said. “The crowd was great, the atmosphere was great with a lot of energy. The girls played fairly flawless that first game. We didn’t give any points away, we were aggressive and our passing was flawless
Jefferson also led most of the way during the second game, but was not able to deliver the knock-out blow when it counted most. “That’s part of the learning process — closing out tight games.” Palm said. “That’s when the big points are won and we’re still learning to do that, but there’s definitely some things we can be really proud of tonight.”
“If our passing is not good, then our setting is not good and if our setting is not good then our hits don’t go down,” senior LeeAnn Farr said. “Then they started coming back and we lost confidence.”
Edgewood was led by Thomas who went 29 of 32 in spiking with 17 kills while Taylor Diemer was 27 of 31 with eight kills.
For Jefferson, Bailey Beckwith was 33 of 40 spiking with 14 kills and Hayley Allen was 26 for 29 with 13 kills.
Shaffer is a freelance writer from Ashtabula.
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