LINDEN — North Montgomery volleyball finally got over the hump on Tuesday as the Chargers hosted Fountain Central. Multiple times this season the Chargers had been close to snagging their first win, but had fallen short. Tuesday they got the monkey off of their backs with a 3-0 sweep (25-16, 25-18, 25-13) of the Mustangs as they picked up not only their first win of the season but also gave coach Taylor Dyson her first career win as head coach.
“It just feels good to really see our girls happy,” Dyson said. “We were finally able to put a complete game together and we’ve been working so hard at doing just that. They kept their energy up all night and were really fun to watch.”
Piper Ramey set up the Charger offense with 21 assists in the win and added nine digs. McKenzie Schroeder had seven kills and added two blocks at the net. Annabel Anderson and Ella Fritzen both recorded five kills. Rylie Gayler on the defensive side for the Chargers nine digs and Bella Mattingly added eight.
FC didn’t go away without a fight as while the Chargers jumped out to a 15-6 lead, the Mustangs scored the next five which forced Dyson to call a timeout. That timeout proved pivotal as the Chargers went on to score the next eight points which was all they needed to secure the victory.
“I just told them in that timeout to stick to the little things and do what they know how to and they’ll come out and win,” Dyson added. “Hopefully they’ll take this confidence with them the rest of the season and realize they can do it. We’ve been working really hard and the results finally paid off for us tonight.”
For the Mustangs it’s been a learning process along the way with so many underclassmen on the team. While the overall match score does say 3-0 in most of their games, FC coach Alyssa Larson knows her team is improving as the scores of each sets are getting better.
“We’re playing really well in some of our games despite them being 3-0, “ Larson said. “We’re doing a lot of good things, the main struggle for us right now is just closing out games. Part of that is age with us being so young and getting everything figured out as we go along. We’ve been working hard and focusing on those last 10 points of the set. We tend to get complacent instead of aggressive in that part of the set and when we lose that aggression, that’s when we tend to struggle.”
FC falls to 1-8 on the season with the loss and will return to the court on Thursday when they welcome another team from Montgomery County in the Southmont Mounties.
North Montgomery improves to 1-8 on the year and will be right back in action on Wednesday as they host Greencastle.
