Gallery by Tina Laney
Greenbrier West has been ranked No. 1 all year in the Class A coaches poll.
Thursday night in Coal City, the Cavaliers looked the part.
Dominating the match from the service line, Greenbrier West knocked off Class AAA Independence 3-1 (25-18, 25-17, 22-25, 25-15).
“All in all I am happy with tonight. I would have liked to win in three (sets), but we will learn from that and we will fix that,” Greenbrier West head coach Joe Robertson said. “We just kind of lose focus some and we have done that before this year. We get ahead and beat a team by a substantial margin and then lose focus. Independence played good and a couple of balls bounced there way that didn’t bounce our way. Our girls get down a little bit and they quit talking. When they quit talking and having fun, they don’t play as well. Our job is to keep them up and keep them talking.”
The first set featured five ties before the Cavaliers started to pull away.
A kill by senior Paige Dean on an over pass and an ace from Brooklyn Adkins helped build a 13-10 advantage and a lead that West maintained the rest of the way.
Independence inched back within one point before Dean separated the game with a kill and three straight aces. Dean also provided the final blow in a 25-18 win.
The Cavaliers never trailed in set two and once again it was Dean creating the separation midway through the set.
With her team leading 12-9, the senior standout ripped off three more aces, coupled with a pair of Patriot attacking errors for a 17-9 advantage.
“I feel like I can start my serving rotation really anywhere I want it. I am confident I am going to have a good server,” Robertson said. “Some of them are a little more aggressive. They get more aces, but also serve in the net or out occasionally. Some others are a little safer, but never serve out or in the net. I like that mixture and all of them are pretty consistent. Even both freshman I have out there have great serves. We are coming along.”
Independence was never closer than seven points down the stretch in a 25-17 setback.
“We weren’t moving. We were not moving our feet” Independence head coach Ron Moreland said about the defensive struggles. “We were letting things drop. Our serves were starting to get better, but in the last couple of weeks our serves have failed us. We just need to get back to basics.”
The home team built a 9-7 lead in set three before Greenbrier West ran off seven straight points. A block from all-stater Preslee Treadway ignited the run which was capped by a kill from Ava Price.
However, just when Greenbrier West looked to be cruising to a sweep, Independence found its game.
Facing at a 16-10 deficit, Graci Perry gave the Patriots a boost with a huge block at the net. An attacking error by the Cavs was followed by an ace from Kayleigh Wilhite and a nice winner down the line from Makensie Denny. When senior standout and WVU Tech commit Aubree Cantrell registered a kill, Independence had rallied for a 17-16 lead.
The match teetered back and forth before Independence made the winning move with the match tied 20-20.
The decisive run started with an attacking error from the Cavaliers. Cantrell then served an ace which was followed by another kill from Graci Perry on a West over pass. Perry wrapped up the set with a kill for a 25-22 win.
“We just need to build on that,” Moreland said. “Take the momentum to build a mindset on how to win. We might be down, but we don’t have to stay down. We are not quite there against better teams where we come out, stay ahead and keep pushing. It’s just putting it all together.”
Independence started set four on the wrong foot with three attacking errors and trailed 8-6 when the deciding set slipped away.
Ava Price and Maddie Sweet hit back-to-back winners that jump-started a 7-0 run which included two aces from Adkins along the way.
“Ava is finally getting her timing down. Part of what it is with her is that we have moved her from the middle last year to the right side,” Robertson explained. “This year she started out at the middle again, but we were going to look at her at outside as well. She missed a weekend because of a wedding, so we moved Preslee Treadway to the middle and that worked out well.”
“We moved Ava back to right side where she seems to like it better,” Robertson went on to say. “Now that she has been able to focus on one spot more and getting her timing down, she has been playing good. She had some good hits for us tonight and she jumps so well. She is going to hit over a lot of girls, so we like her there.”
Kamryn Wooten stopped the bleeding for Indy with a kill and was a bright spot for the Patriots all night.
“Kamryn was clicking tonight,” Moreland said. “She was seeing the court and she was able to go from hitting the ball hard to dropping it down in spots and hitting the corners that they were leaving open.”
The biggest lead of the set came at 22-9 off of another kill from Sweet which eventually led to a 25-15 win.
Overall it was a quiet night for Treadway at the net even though she did register some solid blasts and two big blocks. Her biggest contribution in the win came from the back row Thursday night.
“Sometimes Preslee ends up on the back more because we are scoring points when she is back there. She is really great on defense and makes plays that a lot of girls can’t make back there,” Robertson said. “Paige hasn’t played back row since middle school and she is getting better every game too. They are a good mix to have in the middle and they block well.”
Even with the lapse in set three, Robertson was pleased with how his team performed Thursday.
“We were a little bit off in some things,” Robertson said. “We didn’t get the ball set exactly where we wanted it some times because our passes were a little off and that makes our hitting off. Overall I liked our hustle. We are still getting used to the new position, but it is coming along good.”
Independence will now have a week off at maybe the perfect time of the season for the Patriots.
“There are some things that we are working through right now,” Moreland said. “We had a good September, but now we need to regroup and get back to where we were. Next week we will have a whole week of practice before any tournament. We can fix a few things that have been lacking and get everybody back on the same page.”
