Short-handed Cougars lose to Hidden Valley

By Cody Dalton
SWT Sports Writer
sports@southwesttimes.com

DUBLIN – Despite not having two of their starters on Thursday, the Cougar volleyball team played hard against the second best team in the district, Hidden Valley. Unfortunately, their effort wouldn’t match the talent level of the one-loss Titans, as Pulaski fell at home, 3-0 (7-25, 6-25, 13-25).

Sickness has been the Achilles heel for the Cougar volleyball team (8-10, 1-7) this week. Becky Pennington has the swine flu. Wednesday, Senior Ashley Burleson, who had replaced Pennington on the front line, came down with a case of the flu as well. The void that Burleson left in defense caused Coach Ashley Surber to bring up JV freshman Alisha Romain to fill Burleson’s spot.

The Cougar’s lack of playing depth showed early in their first game. The Titans would get out to an early 6-0 lead. Samantha Ringer had three aces and the Cougars committed three errors.

“She [Ringer] is the same girl that ate us up at their place,” Surber said. “I felt like they played a lot better here in our house than what they did at their place, but when you’ve got hitter after hitter, it is kind of hard to go toe-to-toe with someone like that.”

Hidden Valley (16-1, 7-1) would continue to hold onto the lead during the first game, but the Cougars fought back. Down 14-4, the Cougars score two straight points. Senior Lauren Stanley had a kill and junior Marlena Morrison delivered an ace block to pull the Cougars back to within 14-6.

The Titans continued to push for more points towards the end of the first game. Liz Burke had three kills, Samantha Klostermann had two, and Ringer added an ace and a kill, as Hidden Valley took game one.

Communication issues continued to plague the Cougars with their new supporting cast. That led to the Titans grabbing an early lead in the first game, as Ringer drove down two aces and a kill.

Jette Wade would get the Cougars on the board with a kill. A service error two points later would take the Titan lead to 6-2. Hidden Valley would then score eight straight points. Kim McDow had three aces and Lottie Meadows added a kill and an ace block. That small burst carried the Titans to a second game victory.

“Jette did a really good job tonight of getting her hands up,” Surber said. “She was a step quicker getting to outside to get touches. She blocked their middle quite a few times, which is what we needed.”

In the third game, the Cougars seemed to get on the same page. Things seemed as if they would follow suit just like the first two games, as Hidden Valley jumped out to a 4-0 lead. The Titans even held a 14-3 lead at one point. That’s when the Cougar offense got going.

After a timeout by Surber, the Cougars regrouped and scored five straight points to get them to within 14-8. That would be as close as they would get though. Hidden Valley would extend their lead as the game winded down. Klostermann would score on two aces out of the final three points to seal the Titans win.

Lauren Stanley led the Cougars with three kills, while sophomore Jette Wade added two kills and two ace blocks. Defensively, Romain had eight digs in her first varsity game.

For Hidden Valley, Samantha Ringer had five kills and eight aces. Liz Burke had seven kills and four aces, while Klostermann added five kills and two aces.

After the game, Romain talked about her first varsity game and the experience she had against playing Hidden Valley.

“They hit way harder than JV,” Romain said. “I was definitely confused sometimes on where I should be. Their angles are different than where a JV person would angle to hit it. They put the ball down differently.”

“Alisha did a really good job of stepping in for never playing a varsity match before,” Surber said. “She has some learning to do, but she wasn’t afraid to get in there and dig a ball up. She is very talkative and that is what we needed. The whole team needs to be more talkative.”

The Cougars next district game will be their final road game of the regular season. They will travel to Blacksburg to take on the Bruins (12-6, 4-4). Blacksburg, who is currently tied for third place in the River Ridge, defeated the Cougars, 3-0 (11-25, 7-25, 21-25), in Dublin two weeks ago.

As for the Cougars lineup against the Bruins next week and the status of Pennington and Burleson, Surber is uncertain at this point.

“I’m not sure what their status will be as of Monday. I’m not sure how long each one of them is going to be out, but if push comes to shove, we will do something different with our lineup come Monday. I’ve got to change it up and get some more defense in there with Ashley being out. We did lose some power without Becky, but all-in-all we did a decent job of trying to hold our own without two of our players.”

(10-22-09)