For most teams in the area, there aren’t many out of district contests that fall in the later half of the volleyball season. As such, Monticello coach John Mitchem wasn’t sure what to make of his team’s matchup with nearby Covenant in the third week of October.
“Early in the year when I was looking at the schedule I was wondering why we had this scheduled here,” Mitchem said. “We came to find out that it worked real well for us tonight to help give us some momentum heading into Charlottesville and Louisa (County) on Tuesday and Thursday.
The Mustangs, who are currently tied with William Monroe for second place in the JD heading into Tuesday, got a chance to play some volleyball without the usual Jefferson District pressure on Monday and made the most of it by sweeping the Eagles, 3-0, 25-10, 25-23, 25-13, behind a heavy rotation of players and more improved transition game.
The Mustangs dropped the first point of game one but managed to go on an impressive 16-0 run to handedly establish what was an insurmountable lead.
Out in front and confident, Monticello moved forward by working in a handful of second stringers with its standard starters.
“We brought in a couple of new outside hitters because they’ve been taking great swings in practice,” Mitchem said. “It was nice to get them into a real game situation and step in a do some good things.”
Covenant put all those Mustangs involved to the test in game two. The Eagles did not allow Monticello to rumble early and when down 23-17, collected themselves to make it a one point game at 24-23.
“They were able to stop thinking and just play in the second game,” said Covenant coach Mariko Schaper. “When they start thinking about how they have to watch a foot or having to watch an arm they wind up overcompensating for things they might have made an error on before. When they relax and play together like they did in the second game it all seems to work better. When they play like that you can tell.”
Mitchem left his relatively inexperienced group in, albeit after a timeout to ease the pressure. The move paid off as the Mustangs had a 2-0 lead.
In game three the Mustangs quickly doubled a 5-point lead into a 10-point lead as they triumphed in a handful of rallies and successfully improvised defensively. But unlike in game two, Monticello would not allow the Eagles to work their way back into the contest.
“In the second game we had some rough patches but finished it,” said Monticello’s junior setter Mariah Williams. “In the third game we struggled on plays but we executed well on out of system plays and we ended up finishing there and that was the main thing for us.”
Unfortunately for Covenant, the team was shorthanded, missing starter and jack-of-all-trades Connor Adams, and subsequently, joined Monticello in testing its roster depth. Nonetheless, Sally Cathcart was able to step up and lead the Eagles’ front line as she finished with seven kills and a pair of digs. Alex Howerton had a trio of kills and led her squad with four digs.
“We don’t want to blame our situation on anything but not having two players and of them being a starter definitely hurt us,” Schaper said. “Connor plays the whole court and so that was difficult, but I had (Jessica Harrington) step in and thought she did a great job.”
For Monticello, Williams led the way with her busy night working in the various hitters, finishing with 27 assists.
“It was nice to be able to work with my sets and see what people like what and where they hit best,” Williams said.
Kate Geldmacher had a game high nine kills. Four more players joined Geldmacher on offense and had four or more kills including Charlotte Divine who had six and Brittany Scott who had five. Taylor Hopkins was the nights best statistical defender with nine digs. Williams and Trystam Carr also both had huge nights at the service line with seven and five respective aces.
The Mustangs (12-5) travel to Charlottesville today at 7:30 p.m.
Covenant (14-7) travels to St. Gertrudes for its next match today at 5:30 p.m.
