Sweet Home 3, Philomath 0
Sweet Home swept Philomath in three games, 25-23, 25-21 and 25-12, at home Thursday, Sept. 16.
Coach Alicia Meier said the Huskies were able to roll to those victories with girls playing positions they weren’t familiar with.
“One of our defensive specialists, Hailey Fisher, had to play in the front row and (outside hitter) Devyn Makin played in the middle,” she said. “Girls were stepping into positions they weren’t familiar with.”
Meier said Makin “did a great job” blocking and touching balls in the center.
“She’s just a really good athlete,” she said. “She reads well, she moves quick and she jumps high.”
She said setter Tiffany Miller “did a great job running the show.
“She’s just such a hustler,” Meier said. “She’s one of those people you want touching the ball every time.”
Megan Graville also added some steady play, she said.
This week will provide two tests for Sweet Home as they travel to Stayton, then host league rival and defending state champion Sisters Thursday, Sept. 23. Polls at the beginning of the week had the undefeated Huskies a fifth in the 4A and Sisters sixth.
“Both teams are really strong,” Meier said. “We’ll see how we can play, where we fit in.
She said the preseason thus far, with wins over teams that soundly defeated Sweet Home last year, has proved that the Huskies “can play with anybody if we control things on our side.”
“It all starts with that pass. We can run anything off that,” she said. “They’ve been having fun out there and playing well. It’s nice.”
The JV I and II teams also defeated Philomath, Meier said. She didn’t have the scores available.
Sweet Home 3, Cascade 2
The visitors kept it close with “scrappy” play, Meier said, in a five-game match in the Huskies’ first appearance at home this season,.
“The girls like to make you real nervous, keep you on the edge of your seat,” she said, jokingly, about her team.
Sweet Home won the first two games 26-24 and 25-22, but Cascade came back in the third game, 25-23 and then took the fourth 25-21.
“In the third game we kind of let them back in, making a lot of errors,”Meier said. “We’d let them have a big lead on some 6-0-type runs and then we’d go on a run and catch up. We were real streaky.”
Sweet Home got its act together again in Game 5, winning 15-12.
Meier said she was confident the Huskies would pull it out.
“I knew they would win,” she said. “It’s just a matter of when it would happen. We were making a lot of errors so I kind of knew we could play with that team. They matched up well with us.”
Megan Graville “did really well” in the back row, recording eight digs and dominating the serve-receive aspect of the match.
“She always wanted the ball and she was always getting to it,” Meier said. “She was passing really good.”
The JV I team won in two games, while the JVII team fell 15-7 in the third game to lose its match.