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Lady Warriors sweep Clearfield
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
By Jon Christoff Sports Writer
ALLPORT - Clearfield volleyball coach Bob Peters likened Tuesday's match with West Branch to his squad as David versus Goliath - with his young, experienced team representing the underdog in the famous tale.
Unfortunately for the Lady Bisons, they never got started against the seasoned Lady Warriors, who opened up a commanding lead in the first set and never looked back.
West Branch got out to a seven-point lead before Clearfield knew what hit it, and cruised to the straight-set win, 25-6, 25-12 and 25-14.
"Our offense ... we can hit with anyone," said Lady Warrior coach Terry Trude, whose team had 31 kills in the match. "If you free ball to us, you're going to have problems.
"Clearfield has a lot of players and they're going to be competitive, they just weren't able to compete at our level. They just have to take it one game at a time and sometimes it's hard to do that, but I thought they played well."
For the Lady Bisons, who dropped to 0-4 on the season, offense was tough to come by.
Clearfield didn't have a service point in the opening set, as an Adrienne Stucke block and five missed serves from West Branch accounted for their scoring.
The Lady Bisons finished the night with nine service points, five of which came in the third set on a run by Samantha Broad.
"Their skill and our inexperience showed tonight, there's no doubt about that," Peters said. "They're a great team and we're still taking our lumps with our inexperience.
"I told them to play their best game, and we'll see what happens. Obviously, we were not favored. I told them David beat Goliath ... but (West Branch is) definitely Goliath, so we're going to take a positive attitude from this and play our best the next match."
West Branch's Haylee Williams was largely responsible for her squad's early advantage after Clearfield lost serve when a player was in the net.
Williams reeled off six straight service points and Jada Larson followed with six more, as the Lady Warriors were never contested in the set.
After missing five in the opening set, West Branch ended with 11 service errors.
"We were aggressive serving," said Trude. "We told the girls to go after it. We had a lot of jump-floats that were kind of long. We played a pretty good high school volleyball game.
"We told them we didn't give (Clearfield) any points defensively, so I'll take that. We have to serve aggressively down the line, and that's what we're going to do. Service errors, when the game's on the line, certainly we'll want to reduce that. I'm okay with our serving right now."
West Branch didn't have a stretch of service points longer than four in the second, but the Lady Bisons still had no answer at the net.
The Lady Warriors had kills from four different players in the second, including a pair from Larson, who finished the night with eight to her credit to go along with a team-high 11 service points.
"Jada's key," Trude said. "She doesn't realize how good she actually is. She's very humble, but when we turn it on and get her ready to play, she's tough to beat."
Mariah McDowell, Sloan Sample and Melissa Lake also had kills in the set. McDowell finished the night with eight kills, while Sample and Lake each added six.
Broad's run in the third gave Clearfield a 6-2 lead before West Branch forced a sideout, and Leann Bell, who had 24 assists, brought the Lady Warriors back into the lead for good.
Bell served six points, including two aces, during the stretch, and Sample added four of her own.
West Branch (2-0) travels to Mount Union Thursday, while Clearfield hosts Brockway.
"I think, as the season goes along, we're going to get better," said Peters. "That's what we have to do. If we do that, we'll see where we're at the next time we play them.
"I got quite a few girls in and we really don't have a starting lineup established yet, but they did well for who they were playing against tonight."
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