Everything came together at once, solid hitting, serving and passing, to allow the Huskies to get the best of Central on the volleyball court Thursday night at home.
The Huskies defeated Central 25-19, 25-16 and 25-23.
“It was pretty exciting because they’ve never been beaten in three in league since I’ve been coaching,” said Coach Debbie Danielson. She has been coaching five or six years.
The loss was only Central’s second in league play this season also, Danielson said. “We were pushing to beat them. I didn’t think we’d beat them in three.”
The Huskies have worked through some issues, she said, and she thinks that helped. Central also didn’t play well that night, while the Huskies played one of their better games. Central also has struggled this year at nonleague games and at tournaments.
The Huskies lost a match and split a match with Central earlier this season, but Central will probably finish league play in second, behind Newport.
In this game, the Huskies didn’t have the hitting errors that have plagued them this year, Danielson said. They had just six errors all night. At the other end of the spectrum, the Huskies notched 30 hitting errors earlier this season against Newport.
Serving was at 93 percent, 100 percent in the first game, Danielson said. The team had a serve receive and passing rating of 1.98, just shy of their goal of two on a scale of zero to three.
“The first game was close, but it wasn’t real close,” Danielson said. The Huskies led for most of it and did even better in the second game.
“They were out of their offensive system,” Danielson said. Central was on the defensive most of the night. Its passing was there, but it wasn’t perfect. The Panthers didn’t get their passes the way they would like them.
The third game, “I was worried,” Danielson said. When a game gets tight like that one did, with such a narrow margin, the temptation is to lose the aggressive style and play it safe.
The Huskies have been focusing on winning the close ones in practice, she said. Among their drills, they play games from a score tied at 20-20 to practice keeping the intensity up and avoid dropping into playing it safe.
“I think they’re learning to get on top of this situation,” Danielson said.
Four players split the damage at the net. Sam Johnson led the Huskies in hitting with eight kills. Annie Whitfield and Emili Riggs each had six kills, and Cassidy Sullivan added three kills.
Libero Megan Graville had a 2.32 serve receive and passing rating with nine digs.
Sullivan served the only 100 percent with eight successful serves. Tiffany Miller was 14-15. Tana Tyler was 13-14, and Graville was 17-18.
The Huskies were scheduled to finish the season Tuesday night at home against Taft.