The Sweet Home volleyball team (2-9) opened its league schedule with mixed results, splitting their first two matches of the week. Sweet Home faced Philomath (2-7) at home, falling 1-3 in a competitive four-set match on Tuesday, Sept. 24.
“Overall, we played well a lot of the time,” Coach Katie Dargis said. “We let some of our own mistakes hold us back.”
The team struggled with serving errors, hitting mistakes, and positioning issues throughout the match.
Despite the loss, several players had strong performances. Karissa Jewell was flawless at the service line, going 19 for 19. Trinity Victor also excelled, serving 17 for 17 and recording four aces. Offensively, Tiara Reynolds led the team with 12 kills, followed by Kaitlyn Kennedy with 10, Kiara Johnson with eight, and Sophia Stock with six. Aubrey Newberry also chipped in offensively with five kills.
Victor was able to set up her teammates for success with 23 assists, while Natalie Smith added 12 assists of her own.
“I’m proud of the girls for keeping a good attitude and effort throughout the game,” Dargis added. “We just have to work on cleaning up some of our mistakes, hitting more aggressively at the net, and getting blocks up more consistently. We’re looking forward to continuing on in league and hopefully getting some wins.”
Two days later, Sweet Home bounced back with a 3-1 win over Newport (3-7) on Thursday, Sept. 26. After dropping the first set, the team responded quick by dominating the next three sets.
“I thought the girls came out a little slow in the first set, [we] just weren’t getting a lot of stuff going for ourselves offensively and were a little slow to react to some plays,” Dargis said. “But they sure picked it up going into game two and then never let up. They just consistently stayed with it throughout the next three sets [and] didn’t give the Newport team much slack on anything.”
Trinity Victor and Aliyah Brown were perfect on serves, with Victor going 10 for 10 and Brown 12 for 12. Miley Smith added five aces, and Natalie Smith recorded three.
Kiara Johnson led the offensive attack with 13 kills, with the coach praising her ability to “hit with intent.” Kennedy added 10 kills in a “phenomenal game offensively as well as defensively.” Reynolds tallied 6 kills.
On the defensive side, Jewell contributed 22 accurate passes to the setter, with the coach commending her performance: “She did a great job back there.”
Newberry and Brown each recorded 2 blocks, while Johnson and Stock each had 1.
Sweet Home will look to build on this momentum as they continue their league schedule. Their first game would have been at home versus North Marion (1-5) on Oct. 1, with a following home game late in the week versus Stayton (4-7) on Oct. 3.
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