Continuing to have a tough go of it on the court, Escalon’s varsity volleyball girls had a pair of Trans-Valley League contests this week and both went in the loss column.
They hosted Ripon Christian on Sept. 24 and lost 18-25, 17-25, 25-19, 18-25.
“All relatively close games but in the end, we made more mistakes on our side of the net,” said head coach Shay Beam.
Notable statistics from the game were Lisa Murga with 12 kills and three blocks; Chloe Fraser with 11 kills and four blocks; Claire Barkus with eight kills and four blocks.
“Aniston Hunt helped us at the service line with four aces and she had 28 assists,” said Beam.
Thursday, Sept. 26 the girls were back on the court to take on Ripon.
“We started out slow. It took some time to find our rhythm but we eventually battled back in the first set,” Beam explained. “We lost 19-25 but momentum was on our side going into set two. We had a good size lead on Ripon, our side was controlled and playing together as a team.”
Ultimately, though, Ripon fought back and got the win in that set by two points, then completed the sweep.
“Even though set one and two were close, we lost set three 13-25,” Beam said. “Ripon runs a very quick offense, quicker than we have seen in several weeks.”
The coach added the good that came out of the matches this past week is learning what they need to be better at so they can get the wins against Ripon and RC in round two.
Fraser had six kills in the Ripon contest, Murga and Barkus each had four.
“What I like about league play is you have the opportunity to play these teams again so moving on to the second round, I am hopeful we can turn these matches to our favor,” Beam said.
JV
Like the varsity squad, the Escalon JV girls found themselves taking a pair of losses.
They lost to Ripon Christian on Tuesday in a very hard fought, competitive match, with scores of 23-25, 26-28.
“Peyton Jacobs had 18 assists, Brynn Caton had two aces and six kills and Jayci Trimble had 10 digs,” head coach Alyssa Cogburn said.
Thursday, the girls were on the road to face Ripon and fell there, 25-27, 15-25.
Jacobs had two aces and nine assists in the contest, while Haven MacKinnon, Violet DaSilva and Caton each had three kills. Caton also added 11 digs.
Freshmen
The youngest volleyball girls were winners in both their matches, as they topped Ripon Christian in three, 23-25, 25-22, 15-2 and put away Ripon in two sets, 25-14, 25-18.
“Allie Fiser had eight kills against Ripon and Kendall Fox and Ronni Keo had five kills each against Ripon Christian,” said head coach Kaitlyn Herrera.
