The Sparta Lady Bulldog’s volleyball team picked up their first win of season with three set win over Massac County before dropping three set matches to Anna-Jonesboro and West Frankfort in the River-to-River Conference tourney hosted by Murphysboro High School Saturday.
All three matches went into the third set with Sparta picking up the win in the first match of the day by the score of 21-25, 27-25, 15-9 over Massac County before dropping close matches to AJ 25-21, 23-25, 15-11 and West Frankfort 25-22, 16-25, 15-13.
“Overall we’re very disappointed that we came out on the short end of those last two matches but it will be a learning experience for us to see how valuable the little things are in this sport,” said Sparta coach Roger Gerlach. “We didn’t do the little things at very important times and it cost us. We certainly are still looking at personnel at various positions and do think things will turn around.”
Sparta was led offensively by Erica Gallois and Rachel Peck as the two seniors combined for 63 of the 70 kills on the day. Sparta gathered 31 kills in match one with each having 14 kills while the team made good on 45 of 49 serve attempts and passed at a 1.67 clip.
In the loss to Anna-Jonesboro, the Bulldogs passing dropped off to 1.30 as evidenced by the lower hit totals as they could only muster 17 kills to go along with four hitting errors.
The West Frankfort match was there for the taking as the Bulldogs were set to take the match but just could not close the door with any consistency on the defensive side as the blocking game showed signs of youthful inexperience and five missed serves at the most inopportune times. The passing stats at 1.38 just did not allow the hitting game to get on track. Gallois had 11 kills while Peck added 10 out of the 22 kills in the match.
“We are going to have to cut down on the untimely mistakes and add some variety to our offensive attack,” Gerlach continued. “Despite the results of the day we were so close to getting the win in all of the matches we played but the little things held us back. We’ll be alright as soon as we figure that out.”
The schedule has the Lady Bulldogs off for a week before participating in the Carbondale Preview tournament where they again will meet up with Anna-Jonesboro before playing O’Fallon and Nashville.
