By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– South Salem Head Coach Matt Leichty gave his team a talk going into that fifth set: What kind of standard did they want to hold themselves too?
Up to this point, the Saxons were playing it safe against West Salem. They were the aggressors in the opening set, but let off the gas in the middle part of the Central Valley Conference match that allowed the Titans to get back into the match and force a fifth set after South Salem took the first set 25-16 and rallied from 22-16 down to take the second set 25-23.
That little second set spurt helped West Salem in the third set, where they took a marathon of a set 33-31 to fight off the sweep. The Titans used that momentum into the fourth, taking that set 25-21 to force a decisive fifth set.
It was their mindset that helped them back into this game. They, West Salem, came out strong. They came out with trust that they can compete and using the lessons they’ve learned in practice to make it a reality, and here it was.
“We talked about mindset. We talked about what we wanted. We wanted to go out strong and play our game. We’ve been working really hard in practice and it showed. We started to be more intentional with our hitters and where we wanted to place our balls and it started to work,” said first-year West Salem Head Coach Mattie Kelly. “We connected this game. It’s a big confidence booster for us that I hope that our girls carry this and know that we can compete and I hope every other school knows that we can compete.”
And that’s where the Leichty Challenge came into play for South Salem. With West Salem rallying and looking for the reverse sweep after falling behind two sets to none, the Titans had an opportunity to rise to the occasion and respond. They did just that, racing out to a quick 3-0 lead over the Titans.
“What is the standard that we want to hold ourselves too and at that point we were not playing up to our standard. And that was the challenge, let’s play the way we know we’re capable of playing. Step up and play like we have played over-and-over again this year, step out to a good team and do the job and be aggressive,” said Leichty of his challenge entering that fifth set. “We were being too safe. Too safe with our serve, too safe with our attacking. We came out and hit some balls hard right away and set the tone for the rest of that fifth set.”
West Salem cut the margin down to two, trailing South Salem 5-3 a few plays later, but the Saxons were just too strong late as they closed out the fifth set with a win en route to a 25-16, 25-23, 31-33, 21-25, 15-8 victory on Wednesday night.
South Salem improves to 4-0 in league play following their eighth-straight victory while the Titans fall to 2-2 in league play and are 5-5 overall.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
