After two days of play in the Trico Invitational Volleyball Tournament only Sparta and Marissa-Coulterville have perfect records.
The Lady Bulldogs increased their season win streak to eight games with victories over Trico and Chester Wednesday night.
In the first match, Sparta topped Chester 21-6, 21-16. Set one opened up with both teams trading points with the last tie at 6-6. After a side out point, Jamie Woodworth reeled off 13 consecutive service points for the 21-6 first set win.
In set two, again with the scored knotted at 6-6, Sparta began to pull away moving to 10-6 before a missed serve by the Bulldogs and a kill by Devon Hecht brought Chester as close as 10-8. A two to three-point lead was maintained until Sparta pulled away from a 17-14 lead to the final 21-16.
“We did a nice job of taking care of the volleyball,” said Sparta coach Roger Gerlach. “We came out and served and played well especially in that first set.”
In the second match of the night for the Bulldogs, they downed the host Lady Pioneers 21-11, 21-8 behind a big hitting match from Erica Gallois with 10 kills while Rachel Peck and Julian Sroka added eight and three kills respectively. Gallois put together a string of nine straight service points in set two to pull away to the big 21-8 win.
“In both matches we had pivotal points where we needed to make some plays and we did. I appreciated the effort tonight we did a nice job in both matches,” Gerlach concluded.
Devon Hecht led Chester with three kills and three blocks while Tiffani Marshall added two kills. Megan Atchison led the team with two assists and five digs.
Sparta will now play for the championship in the 9 p.m. match against Marissa-Coulterville.
With the wins, Sparta improved their overall record to 10-6.
Marissa-Coulterville improved to 3-0 in tournament play with a 21-16, 15-21, 16-14 victory over Chester and a 21-16, 20-22, 15-13 win over Steeleville.
Against Chester, the Lady Meteors avenged a Saturday loss to the Lady Jackets in the finals of the Queens of the Court Tournament with a close three set victory.
Marshall led the Chester attack with eight kills while Hecht finished with four kills and 12 blocks. Jamie Chambers led the squad in assists with eight while Shelly Lyons added nine digs and Amy Araiza had nine points.
With the pair of losses, Chester fell to 6-14 on the season.
In other action, Trico knocked off Christ Our Savior 21-7, 21-13.
The tournament standings after two days of play are Sparta (4-0), Marissa-Coulterville (3-0), Trico (2-1), Steeleville (1-2), Chester (0-4) and Christ Our Savior (0-4).