McDowell, Polk and Hendersonville Games

The Lady Mountaineer
volleyball team couldn’t
carry their momentum
from their prior two-win
week into matches last
week against a 4A team
and the two top teams in
the Western Highlands
Conference.
Mitchell’s losses at McDowell on Monday, at Polk
on Tuesday and at home
against Hendersonville on
Thursday had a common,
familiar thread - defensive
miscues made while trying to return opponents’
serves.
In their 25-18, 25-16, 25-
11 loss to the Lady Titans
on Monday, Mitchell started off well enough, trading
points with the 4A school in
the first set. But when their
defense started slipping, so
did other aspects.
“We definitely struggled
with serve receive,” Head
Coach Amber Young said.
“It’s frustrating to come off
such a good week the week
before last and struggle
last week.”
McDowell had runs of
five and six points to take
control in the second set,
aided by what Young said
was a lack of communication on the back row.
“McDowell made hustle
plays when they needed to.
We were just two steps late
making plays on the ball,”
she said.
Those return problems
continued to plague the
Lady Mountaineers against
Polk and Hendersonville.
In their 25-9, 25-12, 25-12
loss to Polk, Mitchell saw
defensive mistakes help
the Lady Wolverines race
out on an 8-1 advantage to
start the match.
“It was serve receive
again,” Young said. “We did
not adjust very well. Our
arms were pointing out of
bounds and not toward the
net. We struggled getting
our passes to our setter.
Our intensity was a little
bit better, but we were still
late on hits.”
In the first set of their
25-15, 25-10, 25-10 loss to
Hendersonville, the Lady
Mountaineers claimed a
12-9 lead, only to see the
Lady Bearcats take full
advantage of Mitchell mis and rip off 16 of the
set’s final 19 points. As
their defense went, so did
their serves, hits and their
play around the net.
“We came out ready
to play, we just let serve
receive get to us again,”
Young said. “Our hustle
wasn’t what it should have
been.”
Mitchell has three chances left to get back on track.
They travel to Mountain
Heritage on Tuesday, host
Madison for their breast
cancer awareness “pink
game” on Thursday, and
wrap up the regular season
at home with their senior
night game against Avery
next Tuesday.
“I told them you’ve got
two weeks left. You can
end out this season with
six wins instead of three,”
Young said. “The biggest
thing is they have to see
that working hard is fun.
Winning is fun, but you
have to work hard to get
there.”