Austin takes down Tigers in 3
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, October 10, 2007
By Mike Simmons, staff writer
Sometimes there is nothing like a bitter rivalry to get a team out of its funk as happened with the Albert Lea volleyball team Tuesday night. The Tigers, despite losing 14-25, 18-25, 18-25 to Austin, came out and played progressively better in each game.
&8220;We have to be able to close it out that&8217;s our biggest problem right now, we can&8217;t close it,&8221; said Tigers head coach Lisa Deyak. &8220;We struggled serving tonight and gave them points that they didn&8217;t earn. I just think that sometimes they need to realize how good they are and they need to expect to win, and I think that at times we don&8217;t expect to win.&8221;
In game one the Tigers fell behind 5-1 early but battled back to within one at 6-5. That was as close as A.L. would get in the first game as they fell to the Packers 25-14.
In game two A.L. once again fell behind early but unlike the first game it came all the way back and held its first lead of the night at 11-10 on a Laura Graber service ace.
With the Tigers&8217; Annika Smed out with an injury to her wrist Graber and Nichelle Klatt stepped it up a notch in game two as they traded kills until a Graber blast evened the score again at 18-18. From that point on the Packers held A.L. scoreless and went up 2-0 with a 25-18 win.
Game three was almost a carbon copy of the second game with the Packers cruising to an early lead only to be overtaken by the Tigers, this time at 15-13 on another Graber kill. But down the stretch, as was the case most of the night, the Tigers beat themselves more than the Packers did and dropped game three.
Graber and Klatt led the Tigers offensively with seven kills each while Jessica Sosebee collected 12 set assists.
With the loss the Tigers fall to 4-16 overall and have lost 13 of its last 15 matches. A.L. will be back in action Thursday when they travel to Rochester to take on Century.
LeCenter 3, A-C 2
ALDEN &8212; The Alden-Conger volleyball team started strong against LeCenter but couldn&8217;t hold the momentum falling in five 25-8, 15-25, 22-25, 25-22, 9-15.
&8220;We got ahead 6-2 in game five but simple mistakes hurt us and we lost it,&8221; A-C head coach Melissa Wasmoen said. &8220;We came out real strong but we fell behind in game two and three.&8221;
Krista Mathiason led the Knights with 14 kills and 12 digs and Megan Miller had 33 assists.
The Knights are 12-13-1 on the season.