Benny Westcott
Sweet Home volleyball lost all six matches this week. In league play, they lost at Stayton 26-28, 23-25, 25-18, 19-25. At Cascade, the Huskies fell 7-25, 8-25, 18-25. Then, at the Marist Round Robin Tournament at Marist High School on Saturday, Sweet Home lost 15-25, 10-25 to Pleasant Hill, 20-25, 17-25 to Springfield, 11-25, 15-25 to Crook County, and 16-25, 15-25 to Marist Catholic.
“We knew it was going to be a challenging week of volleyball and it was,” Head Coach Mary Hutchins said. “There were some added unforeseen challenges that also made themselves known.”
She said that “We struggled this week to find any type of consistent playing rhythm. Unfortunately several players were battling sickness and some circumstances beyond their control. We had a lot of adversity with using different lineups, struggling in serve receive rotations, miscommunications on the court, etc., throughout games that we played this week.”
She added that “Unfortunately, we were unable to secure a win all this week while competing against teams all ranked above us in their respective designations. We are getting back to the drawing board and working to build mental toughness and consistency in our game. We need to find a way to not just be happy rallying with teams, but winning those rallies and winning the sets.”
The coach said that “Some bright spots this week was that our blocking game finally started to show some consistency, and that will help us tremendously going forward if we can keep that going. Another bright spot is senior leadership, with seniors stepping up on the court with communication, being coachable, and being willing to play out of position to try to help improve outcomes for the team.”
She noted that “This team overall is very enjoyable to coach. They show up to practice ready to work hard and determined to improve. They have been supporting each other and encouraging each other through every challenge and they are willing to keep fighting to work to change our outcomes and start adding to the win column again. Though our results were not what we wanted this week, I saw tremendous growth in attitudes and mindsets and I hope going forward we will see some more wins for Husky volleyball.”
This week Sweet Home (5-8) hosts Newport (5-6) at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 26, before traveling to Philomath (4-3) for a 6 p.m. game on Thursday, Sept. 28.