Crawfordsville’s volleyball team fell from the ranks of the unbeaten with a 3-0 loss to West Lafayette.
The 25-15, 25-18, 25-19 loss drops the Athenians to 11-1, while the Red Devils improve to 8-1.
“It was a learning experience,” Crawfordsville coach Kelly Johnson said. “West Lafayette is a very good, very talented and very athletic team. This is not a negative loss in any way - we played well and lost to a very good team tonight.”
The Red Devils had an answer to every C’ville challenge, someone to return every hit, and two big hitters to chalk up the points.
“We stayed focused,” WL coach Shari Bittles said. “Crawfordsville is a great team, and there were some great rallies. “We have great leadership and we have people who have stepped into roles. We got a lot of digs and tips tonight, and we just hope to use a win like tonight to springboard us to the future.”
The Athenians jumped out to a 10-5 lead in the first set, but the visitors rallied, literally.
“We had them on the run there in the first set,” Johnson noted, “but then they did not let the ball hit the floor.”
A 10-2 rally was followed by a 10-3 run, and the Athenians lost the first set for the first time all season.
There were smaller runs in the second and third sets, but the results were the same. Crawfordsville got to within five late in the second set, and the third set was tied at 17 before Westside finished things off.
“We got better as the night went on,” Johnson said. “We got more aggressive, we had a spark on the front line. The one thing we did come to realize is that you have to continue to work at communicating on the floor.”
The Red Devils also knew that they had to keep Crawfordsville’s Macy Bruton from controlling the action at the net.
“She is a scorer,” Bittles said of the Athenians junior hitter. “We had to go up and try to block her, but then we wanted to turn every free ball into a kill, to get points, and I thought we did that well.”
Bruton finished with 20 kills, but WL used their two big hitters time and again.
Senior hitter Tori Woods, leading the team coming into the night, had 17 kills, and on the other side of the front line, junior hitter Rachel Williams put down 14 kills.
“Those two are such great leaders, they push each other and their teammates so hard,” Bittles said. “Everyone wants to play with them, want to go up against the best with them.”
Laine Schlicher led the Athenians with 25 assists, and the senior added a kill, and block and two digs to her night. Bruton had 10 digs and an ace to go with her kills.
Olivia Reed had eight digs, followed by Halle Elliott with seven. Hallie Gayler had six kills and a pair of blocks. Shea Williamson and Liddy McCarty each had three kills.
Bittles handed out kudos as well.
Taylor Woods and Shree Saravanan had great digs and blocks all night,” she noted, “and Ann Alekseenko was so sharp passing the ball. It’s been a strange couple weeks with either lots of games or no games, and I’m really proud of the girls for how hard they have worked.”
“We went down to Terre Haute and beat a 4A team last week,” Johnson said. “Tonight it wasn’t there for us. We just have to keep our winning attitude, not get frustrated, and go get the next win on Saturday.”
