By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
ALBANY, Ore.– The Silverton Volleyball team rose to the occasion on Saturday at the State Preview Tournament at South Albany High School.
In pool play, the Foxes fell to Bend, but picked up wins over Forest Grove and Oregon City en route to a second place finish in their pool. The second place finish put Silverton in the Championship Bracket, where they drew 6A Juggernaut Jesuit.
During the first set, the Foxes matched the Crusaders as they held leads of 10-8 and 16-15 over Jesuit. The Crusaders would close out the set on a 10-3 run to take the set 25-19.
“I think we did pretty good…we held our ground pretty well, we were expecting to go harder in the second set, but that didn’t happen,” said Kylie Kjall. “We really need to work on our serve-receive and just not letting down as a team.”
Jesuit took advantage of the little mistakes by Silverton in the second set to set the tone in the 25-12 victory to complete the 25-19, 25-14 sweep in the opening round of the Championship Bracket.
Being more aggressive on the court is what the Foxes will hope to work on as they return to their Mid-Willamette Conference schedule this week. And that’s a good part of what makes the tournament in Albany such a good one, it’s a tune-up for the second half of the league schedule and that playoff push. Every team there are high-level teams that are all aiming for deep playoff team’s later this season.
“For us, we just have to be more aggressive, just not be afraid. When you play a team like that (Jesuit), you have to be unafraid of errors and just be aggressive all the time. (Jesuit) doesn’t make a lot of mistakes, so if you let mistakes hang out, they’ll get you,” starts Silverton Head Coach Kirsten Barnes.
Silverton will host Crescent Valley on Tuesday.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
