Cloverdale volleyball falls in three

Cloverdale's volleyball squad was hoping to carry over momentum from Monday night's five-set win over South Vermillion when the Clovers hosted Clay City Tuesday night.

Instead, the Eels flew out of the traps and despite a gallant effort to tie the first set, dropped the set and eventually the match 19-25, 16-25 and 14-25.

Cloverdale head coach Kathy Moore said the squad was unhappy with its level of play Tuesday.

"The girls didn't play well tonight and they're disappointed with that," Moore said. "We had a packed house tonight and I'm disappointed for them.

"We didn't play our best tonight. We played five sets last night at South Vermilion but that's volleyball in the fall."

Clay City went on the attack early, grabbing a 7-1 lead and seemed to be in control of the opening round when leading 15-7 before the hosts dug in and eventually took a brief 18-17 lead.

The Eels eventually steadied themselves and used some late Clover errors to take the first set 25-19.

Moore said that the squad did not string passes together well enough to be the aggressors.

"We didn't pass very well tonight and that was our big problem," Moore said. "Our setter had to run, which meant we were out of our system while Clay City attacked us.

"They had a few kills but we really hurt ourselves. We're going to learn something from that because that happens to teams from time to time and we can't have that happen anymore in a short season."

Cloverdale started off the second set with four straight points, only to struggle to make long rallies count in their favor as the visitors were able to outlast the hosts at several key intervals.

Tied at 8-8, Clay City rattled off 10 straight points to blow the set open, eventually grabbing a 25-16 win that put them up 2-0 in the match.

Even down two sets, Moore felt the squad could draw on Monday night's performance for encouragement.

"I never rule this group out of any match because they're not quitters," Moore said. "We came back from two sets down last night but just didn't have it tonight."

The Clovers started off the third set tied with the Eels 5-5 but fell behind quickly at 10-5 and found no way back into the match, trailing by as many as 13 points before falling 25-14 to finish the night.

Kimmy Winders led the attack with five kills and four digs while Lexi Branneman added four kills and five blocks.

Jessica Winders had 10 assists, seven points and seven digs while Bailee Stevens, Christa Asbury, Maddy Smith and Savannah Jones added five digs apiece.

With West Vigo visiting on Thursday, Moore said the squad needed to be quicker to adapt to the game situation but had faith in her squad to do so.

"What we have to learn is when we get ourselves into a pickle, how do we work out of it?" Moore said. "We like to play aggressive ball but we played on our heels and didn't attack the way we like tonight.

"We'll bounce back. I have no doubts about that. This is a highly competitive team that's disappointed with their play and will make changes for Thursday."

At Cloverdale

Clay City -- 25 25 25

Cloverdale -- 19 16 14

Next Match: Cloverdale (2-2, 1-0 WCC) hosts West Vigo on Thursday.