North Putnam takes down Greencastle

Friday, October 1, 2010

ROACHDALE -- The North Putnam volleyball squad defeated the Greencastle Tiger Cubs in three sets Thursday. Anytime two county rivals meet, sparks are bound to fly.

The first game started with the Cougars finding themselves with a 7-1 lead. Kallie Brattain contributed at the net for two points along with two aces by Morgan Robinson. Greencastle's first three points came off an error by the Cougars.

Megan Robinson had an ace to extend the North Putnam's lead. Each team had errors but it seemed that the Cougars were able to bounce back from their's faster. That along with Robinson and Samantha Lucas being big factors at the net for the Cougars helped bring the game to an 18-9 lead.

Greencastle's Rayleigh Amis had a big hit but North Putnam's Tari Straziscar was able to get under it and put it back over the net. An error by the Tiger Cubs and Megan Robinson at the net ended the game at 25-11.

The second game began with Greencastle's Alex Basile served and gave the Tiger Cubs' first point. Errors and another ace by Morgan Robinson gave the Cougars a 3-1 lead.

The game came to a tie after Greencastle's Erika Davies made a play at the net to bring the score to five all. This was the first of many ties during the second game due to errors by both teams. Lucas had a big hit and Amis was able to keep it in play and send it back over. Davies put up a big block on Lucas bringing the game to nine all. Lucas then fired an ace back over allowing the Cougars to take another lead.

Another series of errors by both teams kept the game within one point until Greencastle was able to take advantage of North Putnam's mistakes, taking a 17-13 lead. North then took a timeout and was able to rally back, earning three unanswered points to bring the game to another tie by using the Tiger Cubs' own errors against them.

Brattain contributed using her serving to give her team another 21-18 lead. More Cougar errors allowed the Tiger Cubs to score three unanswered points, bringing the game to a 21-all tie.

The last four points of the game came off errors by Greencastle and Lucas' serving allowing the Cougars to win 25-22.

The third and final game saw more ties and errors. Amis scored the Tiger Cub's first point. North Putnam was not far behind. Megan Robinson had a big hit off of Kelsey Grzesiek, bringing the game to the first tie at two.

Morgan Robinson and Brattain helped their team come from behind and forced a tie at five all. However, the Cougars didn't stop there. They took off and scored seven unanswered points before the Tiger Cubs scored off errors made by North Putnam. Kandice Phillips fired two back-to-back aces, bringing the Tiger Cubs within five points.

The Cougars had four more unanswered points bringing the game to 18-10. Greencastle answered back with three of their own. Danielle Harbison was able to place a ball for Mackensy Asbell to spike it for a point.

It became a battle at the net between North Putnam's Lucas and Greencastle's Amis. Asbell was able to put a block on Amis. Davies had a hit to score a point. That along with three errors by the Cougars brought the game back within four. Amis sent a ball over and Megan Robinson received it. Keeping the ball in play, Robinson sent the ball to Katie Welch who set the ball up for Brattain who put a big hit down. The game ended on two mistakes by Greencastle and a huge spike by Brattain bringing the game to 25-20.

Greencastle head coach Liz Spencer was pleased with how her players played as a team. "We changed our defense again. I thought that our younger players stepped up tonight and they didn't quit. We had great play out of Kandice Phillips and Shelby Earl. Some of our players stepped up and played position that they hadn't been playing. We picked up a lot more balls than we had then have been. We are just going to try to keep playing hard."

At North Putnam

North Putnam 25 25 25

Greencastle 11 22 20