In a “Pink” game earlier this week, the Hobbton Wildcat volleyball team hosted conference leader East Columbus, falling in straight sets. The Gators are 15-1 overall and 9-1 in the conference.
“They’re the best in the conference and they played like it,” commented coach Russell Jones after the game.
“We had a game plan and went up 2-0 on them. Then, they got eight in a row.”
The Wildcats were down 8-2. They rallied and got to 8-5. The rest of that set, the Gators were getting four points to the Wildcats’ two. The game ended 25-10.
In the second set, the Wildcats played right with the Gators for a while, with the score knotted at 8. But then the East Columbus girls hit their stride, getting nine points in a row. The Wildcats went from being tied at eight to down 17-8. The second game ended 15-18, Gators.
Game three was much the same, ending 25-21, Gators.
“In game three, we played a lot better,” Jones pointed out. “We kept breaking their serve. They had a run of five in a row and a run of four in a row. That set the ending at 25-21.
“We got better as the game went along,” Jones continued. They have one exceptional talent and we tried to keep the ball away from her. She is 6’3, and when we got her off the front row, we played them more than even. When she was on the front row, there wasn’t much we could do about it.”
JV
Like it’s varsity counterpart, Hobbton’s JV also fell in straight sets. The first game was 25-6, Gators. They had two servers who set the tone. The first had six aces almost in a row, sending the guests up 12-2. Their next server continued with the Gators getting 10 straight points.
The Wildcats performed better in the second game, holding the Gators’ first two servers and getting them out quickly. Later in the game, a third Gator server came up and scored 10 points in a row.
The Wildcats were up 12-7 when her rotation came. Suddenly, the Wildcats were down 15-12. The third server finished the game with seven points in a row, ending the set at 25-13.
Jones commented, “A lot of the JV had never played. We got better as the game went on.”
The varsity Wildcats dropped to 12-5 overall and 8-3 in the conference. They traveled to Union Thursday for a cross country match.