In their first home match of the season, nearly four weeks after they played their first match, Sweet Home’s volleyball team looked … tired … in a 3-0 loss to Sutherlin Tuesday, Sept. 22.
Things were a little better, score-wise at Cottage Grove two nights later, but the Huskies lost their third match in a row, again 3-0.
“We’ve only had one home game in the month of September,” Coach Mary Hutchins said. “The girls are so tired. They’re missing so much class time. They’re stressed about school. It’s a huge issue.”
The good news for Sweet Home is now that they’re fully into the league season, they at least have one home match a week.
Tuesday, Sept. 29, the Huskies, 1-3 in league and 3-7 overall, play at Elmira, which is winless this season. Then they host Junction City, the one league team they’ve beaten, on Thursday.
Sutherlin 3, Sweet Home 0
The first game of the match was close, 25-22, but the Huskies went flat in Game 2 and lost 25-13, before losing another closer one 25-22 after a comeback attempt in Game 3.
“We did that to ourselves,” Hutchins said. “Sutherlin is good and we actually did better against them than we did last year. Bit on our end we have to clean up our communication. We had trouble adjusting to their quick offense, getting to the right spots.”
Ally Tow led Sweet Home with eight kills, one of her best nights of the season, and Madisen Barringer had five. Hutchins noted that Molly Fisher “did a great job for us” on defense.
Cottage Grove 3,
Sweet Home 0
The scores were closer overall, 25-19, 25-21, 25-18, but the Huskies dug themselves “a huge hole” in each game and then couldn’t quite battle back.
Tow, Barringer and Kaley Lopez all finished with four kills each and Lopez had seven blocks, one ahead of Barringer.
“Cottage Grove is a very good team,” Hutchins said. “We played better there. If we’d played as well against Sutherlin as we did against Cottage Grove, I think Sutherlin might have been a different game.”