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Lady Vikings top Claysburg in straight sets
Thursday, October 29, 2009
By Jon Christoff Sports Writer
FLINTON - Glendale's volleyball match with Claysburg-Kimmel on Wednesday evening was special in a couple of different ways.
The Lady Vikings, who won in straight sets, had a trio of players recognized beforehand for Senior Night, and the win moved Glendale to 8-8 on the season - the first non-losing regular season in school history.
The sweep of the Lady Bulldogs (25-22, 34-32 and 25-21) was not Glendale's last game, however, as the Lady Vikings will make school history again when they take the court in the District 6 playoffs, which begin next week.
For head coach Kayla Miles, she felt her team's effort was the best she's seen all year.
"We had the best energy, we made some good plays and we played as a team," said Miles. "They had some trouble the last couple games working as a team, but everyone gave 100-percent the whole game. No one quit ... no one let down."
And the Lady Vikings needed to be tenacious in earning all of their wins.
Claysburg-Kimmel battled Glendale tooth-and-nail each game, but the Lady Vikings always had a little bit more moxie when push came to shove.
Each of the three sets were tied in the 20s, but Glendale answered anything the Lady Bulldogs had - including several set points in the wild 34-32 second.
Claysburg-Kimmel had game-point on five different occasions, only to be turned away on each instance.
Glendale finally claimed the set when a kill attempt sailed long of the end line.
The Lady Vikings did their best to let the Lady Bulldogs hang around in the set, though, as they had eight service errors in the frame and 16 in all.
"That second set ... I couldn't sit still," Miles said. "Once it started getting tied after 25, I couldn't even sit still. (They had it in their heads) they were going to take it and they did. They gave it their all.
"Our serving killed us. We would've had a lot more points if it wasn't for our serving. I don't know why we get so worked up over them. At practice we're fine, but once we're here I think they just feel rushed."
For the only time in the match, Claysburg-Kimmel gained an advantage early in the third and made the Lady Vikings play catch-up.
With things knotted-up at five, the Lady Bulldogs had their longest serving run of the night, as they came up with six-straight points to take an 11-5 lead before Glendale came up with a sideout.
The Lady Vikings chipped away at the lead, and captured the match with four-straight service points from junior Morgan Biddle, who had team-highs in digs (12), kills (seven) and blocks (four).
While the underclassman helped Glendale close things out, the Lady Vikings got three big games from its trio of seniors in Ciara Doughty, Taylor Troxell and Ashley Weakland.
Troxell led all players with nine service points and chipped in with 10 digs, while the diminutive Doughty had eight service points, eight digs and six kills - three of which came in the first set.
Weakland had a solid outing at the net with four kills.
"I'm really going to miss these girls," said Miles of her seniors. "They gave me everything they had throughout the season. You could tell they were really dedicated. Taylor as my captain ... she's probably the definition of the word captain. She's always talking the girls up, and whenever there is something wrong on the court she's the one that brings the girls up and says, ‘we need to fix this.'
"For her being so little, she's so active and it's the same with Ciara. Ciara is the littlest girl on our team and tonight she actually had a hit where her knee came up to the middle of the net - that's how high she jumped. (I can't say enough) about Ashley and her blocks. I'm really going to miss them next year."
The Lady Vikings will wait for the district brackets to be released today, and will play on Tuesday.
Claysburg-Kimmel took the jayvee match in straight sets.
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