Ken Roberts
For The New Era
Sweet Home visited the land of some giants this past week in volleyball competition, and the giants weren’t that friendly.
On Wednesday, the Huskies faced off with the Stayton Eagles, who had a number of strong front-row players who kept Sweet Home on its heels, trying to dig out out powerful hits. The Huskies fell short, losing 25-18, 25-5, and 25-20. Sam Johnson’s hitting and strong defense were a bright point in the two close games, plus the steady serving forced the Eagles to create their own points.
In Thursday’s action at Yamhill-Carlton, Sweet Home started out playing even with the Tigers in each game. Gradually, however, the Tigers wore them down with strong hitting again to beat the Huskies 25-12, 25-15, 25-16. While the defense has been struggling to make good passes to set up their offense, Emilie Riggs showed signs of bringing stability to that part of their game.
Coach Debbie Danielson said the Huskies are learning to adjust to the height problems that some of their opponents have presented without just swinging and hitting into their blocks.
“We have a hard time seeing what’s on the other side of the court,” stated Danielson.
“That takes experience. And we don’t want to stop swinging either. I think we’re learning.”
The best news of the week for the Huskies came Saturday in their own tournament.
They started out slowly against eventual runner-up Creswell, losing 25-11. Then the juices began to flow. With a renewed energy, Sweet Home began to return every ball and matched the Bulldogs kill for kill. Whether it was Alisha Huschka dumping a set into an empty hole in Creswell’s defense or Hillary McCartin producing a big kill to stop an early run, the whole team contributed to staking the Huskies to their largest lead at 22-15.
Creswell tried to close, but Sweet Home held them off for a 25-23 victory.
In the final game of that match, the Huskies kept up their pace. Tiffany Miller and
Huschka set up Paige Niemi for four kills, while Huschka had a kill and another well-placed dump to give Sweet Home a 14-13 lead. Near the end, though, Creswell served up some strong top-spin serves and followed them up with their power game to eke out a 25-19 win.
“It’s good to know that we can beat a team like Creswell,” said Danielson. “We
were really fighting and intense. We were blending together as a team much better.”
Serving and balanced play led the Huskies to a three-game sweep of Elmira, a team without a power hitter.
The Falcons could not handle the strong, consistent serving of Sweet Home as the Huskies fought to an opening 25-17 victory.
Both teams had trouble keeping the ball in play in game two, but the hustle of Bayli Riggs on defense and some emerging offense from a variety of players allowed the Huskies to edge Elmira 25-22.
Several freshmen contributed to the scorching 25-12 win to finish off the Falcons, including the serving of Miller and the net play of Emilie Riggs and Devyn Makin.
The fifth-seeded Huskies then played Sisters in the championship pool. The Outlaws, with a deep and talented team, ended the day for Sweet Home after convincingly defeating the Huskies 25-10, 25-16.
“I’m glad we are playing top-notch teams,” Danielson explained. “It’s making the team begin to work together.”