Twice in the first two games Louisa County had a chance to put something together but between Monticello’s serve, its all-around offensive effort from a handful of athletes, and miscues from the Lions, the Jefferson District opener for both teams ended up relatively one-sided. The Mustangs avoided big holes early in games, and thanks to the way they played in the middle portion of each set, were able to roll to a 3-0 victory, 25-19, 25-18, 25-17.
“It felt like we were playing pretty well – a little sloppy at points with our transition game, things we’ve been talking about getting into district play – but that’s something we hope to clean up,” said Monticello coach John Mitchem. “We’ve got a lot of new faces so it’s been good getting them all to mesh and we’re trying to hit our stride at the right time.”
In the first set Louisa was able to put together a 3-point lead at 8-5, but Monticello raced back to win 11 of the next 13 points to take a 6-point advantage of its own. The healthy buffer stood for the rest of the game and the Mustangs went up 1-0.
“The serve-receive was pretty strong and I thought that playing out of system, we did a pretty good job there,” said Monticello’s Charlotte Devine. “Communication has a gotten a lot better, I think one of biggest improvements so far. We have a new setter (in Allie Perez) so we’re really working on getting our sets more consistent and just talking and trying to stay in system.”
Game two was tightest with both teams going back and forth to a 10-10 tie. But five errors by Louisa led to a 7-0 run for Monticello to again jump out in front and the Lions were unable to get any closer than five points before the Mustangs closed it out.
“I feel like what happened was we were just coasting,” said Louisa Coach Julie Bryant. “We didn’t necessarily play poorly, it was just that we did more things that cost us mistakes. Volleyball is a game of mistakes. And the whole point is you want to be on the side making less mistakes and tonight we were making more mistakes. It seemed that we making similar mistakes (each game).”
Monticello got off to a good start on with a 5-0 lead to begin the third and final set. While Louisa was able to win 10 of the following 17 points, the 2-point margin was as close as it could come. A subsequent 10-2 run for the Mustangs put a fourth game out of reach and Monticello was able to wrap up the 3-0 victory.
The Mustangs had 15 aces on the night and were led by Devine who had seven of them. The senior had an all-around night by leading her team with 10 digs and also finished out front in kills with six. Perez had a busy night distributing the ball and finished with 20 assists on the night. Libero Trystam Carr had seven digs. Kaona Ayres contributed five kills.
The Lions (3-4), still rotating around home sites because of last year’s earthquake in Mineral, will host Fluvanna County at the Betty Queen Center at 7:30 p.m.
The Mustangs (6-4, 1-0 JD) will host last year’s JD tournament runnerup in Powhatan on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.
