Lady Cyclones kept on their heels, swept by Grace Christian
By Jimmy Lewis jlewis@wilsontimes.com | 265-7807 | Twitter: @JimmyLewisWT
A reactionary Community Christian School varsity volleyball team continued to discover that life is indeed challenging in its new 1-A Mid-Carolina Conference home Friday night.
The Lady Cyclones, plagued by court coverage issues that bled into their ability to generate any semblance of a consistent offense, were forced into a defensive posture early and sputtered to a 25-6, 25-13, 25-9 defeat at the hands of Sanford Grace Christian at Peace Church.
CCS lost its third straight match, falling to 2-5 overall and 2-3 in Mid-Carolina play. The backsliding in conference play has overruled a 2-0 start to league play, where the Lady Cyclones engineered a home-and-home sweep of Henderson Crossroads Christian.
“I’ve got to hand it to them,” CCS head coach Candi Watson said of Grace Christian. “They knew what they were doing. I think a lot of our problems was our girls need to work on the tips. It seems like the schools that really defeat us are the ones that use the tip as their strategy. And our girls have got to work on that as far as covering those tips and covering the holes when the tips come through.”
However, defending against the tip wasn’t the only malady before the Lady Cyclones. Just the act of serve-receive proved problematic at the outset, as Grace Christian assumed quick command with a 9-0 advantage. Only a service error from the visitors halted the run, and it took until a 19-3 margin for Watson to call a halt to the action with a timeout.
The second set started no better for CCS, falling behind by margins of 14-5 and 21-10 before the only timeout of the set was requested by the Lady Cyclones bench.
CCS statistics credited the Lady Cyclones with 22 digs, five each from eighth grader Gracie Beamon, sophomore Abigail Jackson and freshman libero Taylor Ricks.
Yet the result of that work on defense frequently resulted in CCS being unable to get anything of substance going on the attack, leaving Grace to feast on free balls — and yet another opportunity to tax the court coverage of the Lady Cyclones.
“I think they do great on keeping the rally going,” Watson analyzed. “I think the majority of the problem is the coverage on the court as far as the other team seems to be able to spot the holes. Because obviously, you can’t cover every single hole on the court. But they seemed to be spotting them pretty well.”
The inability to get any aggression on the attack took a quick toll, although CCS put forth its best effort early in the third set. CCS didn’t lead in the match until the first point of the third set off a service error and sustained until an 8-6 margin. Yet Grace engineered a quick 4-0 run, prompting a quicker timeout from Watson. However the result was merely a 15-3 close from Grace Christian.
“You’re constantly trying to recover from what you just did,” Watson said of her team’s limited offense. “So that takes away from you being able to be the team that’s doing the bump, set and spike. It seems like they keep being able to do that on us, and we’re constantly recovering. But I was proud of the girls tonight. They hustled and didn’t give up.”
CCS was just 7 of 30 on the attack. Jackson had five of those kills, while senior Alexis Langley had two. Langley was credited with 9 of the team’s 13 blocks, the other four going to eighth grader Lily Lyndon.
CCS will try to reverse its fortune Tuesday when it travels to Lee Christian.
By Jimmy Lewis jlewis@wilsontimes.com | 265-7807 | Twitter: @JimmyLewisWT
A reactionary Community Christian School varsity volleyball team continued to discover that life is indeed challenging in its new 1-A Mid-Carolina Conference home Friday night.
The Lady Cyclones, plagued by court coverage issues that bled into their ability to generate any semblance of a consistent offense, were forced into a defensive posture early and sputtered to a 25-6, 25-13, 25-9 defeat at the hands of Sanford Grace Christian at Peace Church.
CCS lost its third straight match, falling to 2-5 overall and 2-3 in Mid-Carolina play. The backsliding in conference play has overruled a 2-0 start to league play, where the Lady Cyclones engineered a home-and-home sweep of Henderson Crossroads Christian.
“I’ve got to hand it to them,” CCS head coach Candi Watson said of Grace Christian. “They knew what they were doing. I think a lot of our problems was our girls need to work on the tips. It seems like the schools that really defeat us are the ones that use the tip as their strategy. And our girls have got to work on that as far as covering those tips and covering the holes when the tips come through.”
However, defending against the tip wasn’t the only malady before the Lady Cyclones. Just the act of serve-receive proved problematic at the outset, as Grace Christian assumed quick command with a 9-0 advantage. Only a service error from the visitors halted the run, and it took until a 19-3 margin for Watson to call a halt to the action with a timeout.
The second set started no better for CCS, falling behind by margins of 14-5 and 21-10 before the only timeout of the set was requested by the Lady Cyclones bench.
CCS statistics credited the Lady Cyclones with 22 digs, five each from eighth grader Gracie Beamon, sophomore Abigail Jackson and freshman libero Taylor Ricks.
Yet the result of that work on defense frequently resulted in CCS being unable to get anything of substance going on the attack, leaving Grace to feast on free balls — and yet another opportunity to tax the court coverage of the Lady Cyclones.
“I think they do great on keeping the rally going,” Watson analyzed. “I think the majority of the problem is the coverage on the court as far as the other team seems to be able to spot the holes. Because obviously, you can’t cover every single hole on the court. But they seemed to be spotting them pretty well.”
The inability to get any aggression on the attack took a quick toll, although CCS put forth its best effort early in the third set. CCS didn’t lead in the match until the first point of the third set off a service error and sustained until an 8-6 margin. Yet Grace engineered a quick 4-0 run, prompting a quicker timeout from Watson. However the result was merely a 15-3 close from Grace Christian.
“You’re constantly trying to recover from what you just did,” Watson said of her team’s limited offense. “So that takes away from you being able to be the team that’s doing the bump, set and spike. It seems like they keep being able to do that on us, and we’re constantly recovering. But I was proud of the girls tonight. They hustled and didn’t give up.”
CCS was just 7 of 30 on the attack. Jackson had five of those kills, while senior Alexis Langley had two. Langley was credited with 9 of the team’s 13 blocks, the other four going to eighth grader Lily Lyndon.
CCS will try to reverse its fortune Tuesday when it travels to Lee Christian.
