Cougars say goodbye in three

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

LIZTON -- In the blink of an eye, the North Putnam volleyball team's season was over.

The Cougars fell to the Tri-West Bruins in the second match of the opening round of the Tri-West sectional 25-10, 25-11, 25-11.

"We gave up before we even stepped foot on the court," NPHS coach Jill Schreiber said. "We had no confidence in ourselves or our teammates."

No matter what it tried, North Putnam couldn't get anything going for itself. Out of the 10 points that it scored in the first set, four of them came from Tri-West service errors and none of them came from the Cougars attacking the net. The Bruins scored eight straight points before an error gave North Putnam the serve.

In the second set, the Cougars kept it competitive for the first eight points and were within one of tying the set at 9-all. But that was as close as they would get, as Tri-West's offense exploded, going on 16-3 run.

"I told them before the third set that Cloverdale was in the same situation three years ago where everybody left the stands and didn't expect them to win," Schreiber said. "And they did win the match and more than that they won the sectional. Now I wasn't expecting to win the sectional, but I hoping to win at least one game."

All the Cougars could do in the third set was score a point every now and then between the Bruins' runs. Tri-West would score four or five, then the Cougars would score one. And that cycle repeated until the end of the match.

"We didn't pass the ball and we didn't ht the ball well," Schreiber said. "We beat ourselves."

North Putnam's offense generated only seven kills Tuesday night, with Carlye McGaughey leading the way with two. Tari Straziscar, Megan Robinson, Paxton Stephenson, Katie Welch and Mackensey Asbell all had one kill each.

The Cougars say goodbye to three seniors in McGaughey, Niki Hamilton and Megan Gray.

At Tri-West

Tri-West 25 25 25

North Putnam 10 11 11