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Tiger Cubs sweep Chargers in final county tournament tune-up
In its final tune-up ahead of the Putnam County Volleyball Tournament Saturday, Greencastle bounced back from being swept at Cascade Tuesday with a sweep of North Montgomery Wednesday evening.
It wasn’t entirely smooth sailing for the Tiger Cubs but the hosts did what was necessary in a 25-20, 25-18, 25-19 win over the Chargers.
“North Montgomery has won some really tough games,” Greencastle head coach Denise Meyer said. “(Tuesday night) against Cascade was a challenging match for us to push through and we were not able to have a good showing.
“Tonight was important to come back from a loss and show up. North Montgomery was scrappy, kept the ball up and alive. We had to find ways to terminate and be disciplined.”
The night looked promising as Greencastle raced out to a 5-0 lead in the opening set and maintained a healthy gap between themselves and the visitors, pushing the lead to seven at 13-6 and steadily increasing the gap until set point at 24-13.
North Montgomery strung the set out by winning the next seven points before setter Allie Landry turned attacker to finally halt the rally with a kill and a 25-20 win.
“When you look at the run, it was troublesome,” Meyer said about not being able to finish the set off. “In set three against Cascade, we were up 16-12 and ended up losing 25-18, a 13-2 run.
“These are things we have to tackle in practice. We were able to pull things out tonight where we couldn’t last night.”
The Chargers, having found their footing, traded the lead back-and-forth to start the second set as neither side held a lead of three points until a three-point run from the hosts to take a 15-11 lead.
North Montgomery replied by taking four-straight points, capped by two aces from Kaydence Young, for a 17-16 lead that prompted a Greencastle time out.
Out of the break, the home side took nine of the last 10 points thanks in part to a pair of kills each from Keely Amis and Madi Plew, along with strong service pressure from sophomores Meilani York and Ellie Knuth, the latter sealing the set with an ace for a 25-18 win.
“As much as we want strong service, we need consistent service as well and (Meilani and Ellie) did a nice job of that,” Meyer said about the pair in the latter stages of the second set. “Ellie did a nice job of mixing in short serves, which frustrates other teams because they don’t know where the ball is going to go.”
Greencastle was slow out of the blocks in the third set as a point and two aces from Piper Ramey saw the Chargers start with a 5-0 lead.
The Tiger Cubs rallied to tie the set at 7-7 and took the lead for good off an Amis kill, followed by a combo block between Plew and Mackenzie Creviston.
North Montgomery kept things tight after falling behind 13-8, doing just enough to stay in the match but not enough to make a late charge despite late kills from Ella Fritzen that made it 22-19 as Amis notched the next two points and the hosts closed out the final set for the sweep.