Greencastle scores win over Cougars

Friday, October 2, 2009
Greencastle's Chelsea Samuels (20) and North Putnam's Megan Gray (8) battle at the net during Thursday's contest. GHS won the match in four games.

GREENCASTLE -- Greencastle Coach Trish Lowe saw her volleyball team do something Thursday night that it has struggled with all season --never giving up.

After Greencastle and North Putnam split the first two sets, the Tiger Cubs got down to business in set number three.

The Cougars quickly jumped out front 8-3, courtesy of a 6-0 run sparked by Megan Gray's precision serving, but in the game of volleyball a lead can change in the blink of an eye and after Greencastle's offense got hot, it found itself on top 12-9.

The Tiger Cubs went on a 9-1 run, with five of the points coming from kills from Braden Amis, Jessie Bennett and Jordyn Lewis. The Cougars battled back and reclaimed the lead, 16-14, after stringing together two short runs, but it wouldn't be enough.

The Tiger Cubs answered back with two runs of their own, a five-point and three-point run, that gave them a 22-18 edge, and eventually winning 25-21.

"We didn't panic and we played together, and that is something that we have struggled with all season," Lowe said. "I'm happy with the way we played tonight."

The Tiger Cubs took their momentum from the third set and poured it into the fourth and before they knew it, they were up on the Cougars 10-3. It led the set for the majority time before North Putnam's Kallie Brattain, who took a shot to the nose earlier and got the Cougars offense going, tied the set at 24-all with a ferocious kill.

From the point on, you could cut the tension in McAnally with a knife as both teams, refusing to give up, kept battling.

With the score tied, it came down to whichever team could force an error and score; and after the two tied the score at 26-all Greencastle came out on top.

After getting a quick side out point, Greencastle got the error they were looking for when North Putnam's Mackensey Asbell got called for a carry, giving the Tiger Cubs the 28-26 win and the 3-1 match victory.

"This was nail biter for us," Lowe said. "But we stayed with it and never gave up.

"A lot of it today was attitude," Lowe said. "We kept playing aggressive and we didn't panic when we made mistakes and that helped a lot."

Lowe said Amis was another key to her team's victory.

"She came to life for us today," Lowe said. "She did a great job of hitting the ball and Chelsea was hitting the ball, too, she just wasn't getting it down, and Amis was. I don't think North Putnam was expecting that. I think they were expecting Samuels to be the main attacker and they set up for that."

It was Amis who sparked the Tiger Cubs offense in the third set that led to their come-from-behind win. She finished the night with 11 kills, four behind Samuels.

"This was a much better night for us," Lowe said. "We did not give in. The nature of the game is to score points on errors and we did not let errors take us out of the game.

"I'm proud of the team making mental and physical adjustments during the entire contest," Lowe added.

Even though her team lost, NPHS coach Jill Schreiber still found something good to talk about.

"We played well," Schreiber said. "We haven't been playing well, but in this match we played well.

"If we could play the way we did those past couple of points in that last set, we would win matches hands down. But we don't, we wait until the last minute," Schreiber added.

Megan Robinson led the Cougars offense with 10 kills while Carlye McGaughey had six kills and Paxton Stephenson had five kills.

Greencastle is back in action on Wednesday when it travels to Cascade for 6 p.m. match while North Putnam is in action again on Monday when it hosts Fountain Central at 6 p.m.

At Greencastle

Greencastle 25 16 25 28

North Putnam 13 25 21 26

Next Match -- Greencastle is back in action on Wednesday when it travels to Cascade for 6 p.m. match while North Putnam is in action again on Monday when it hosts Fountain Central at 6 p.m.