MOGADORE: It always ends with a sigh of relief from the coaches no matter the outcome.
Let’s be honest: A win or a loss the first game of the season probably doesn’t mean much at the end anyway. Although it is always important to start off positively.
Mogadore was the lucky one Monday night, sweeping all three sets 25-8, 25-18 and 34-32 against a stingy Springfield team that got better as the night went along.
“We needed that win,” Mogadore coach Jen Ritch said. “We’ve had scrimmages and played it really tight with a lot of decent teams. We needed to do that as a team to get our unity together.”
Unity.
Going into that first game of the season coaches hardly know what to expect from their team, especially Ritch.
All six of her starters from last season graduated, leaving her with a starting lineup of three seniors (Jenn Watson, Morgan Halderbaum and CJ Lange) two juniors (Carley Hurley and Makenzie Williams), a freshman (Grace Reilly) and a sophomore (Ashley Barker).
“They’ve never played together before I got a freshman setter, so they are feeling each other out,” Ritch said. “Even my seniors, none of them played. The only ones that played were my two juniors, who played last year as sophomores.”
And one of those juniors, Hurley, moved from setter to libero this season.
“We’ve got some growing pains we are ironing out,” Ritch said. “We have some ability; we just have to put it all together.”
Ritch’s 5-1 system only uses one setter and she has already entrusted Reilly, the freshman, to control that. She didn’t seem to have many problems on Monday as she led everyone with 35 assists. She added 12 serving points and four aces.
“It’s a big jump from junior high volleyball to varsity, but it’s a step that needs to be done for the program,” Ritch said. “She is a talent and she wants it.”
For the first set-and-a-half it didn’t look like the Wildcats would have any problems.
They easily slipped past Springfield 25-8 and jumped out to a 10-point lead in the second game, but as time passed, the Spartans’ confidence continued to grow.
Springfield battled back to bring the second game within four points before falling 25-18. Then it led for a lot of the third game as the two teams went point-for-point with each other until Mogadore was finally able to pull away with a 34-32 victory.
Lange led Mogadore with four kills and four aces. Hurley finished with three aces and 11 digs.
The Spartans won just three games all last year but showed plenty of resilience to nearly get their first one of this season on their first try.
“I’m always proud of them,” second-year coach Ken Moinette said. “I know there are better athletes in every one of them. I’ve seen it. It’s just them figuring out how to bring it out at the right times.”
Junior Jaime Alcorn led the Spartans with seven serving points and five digs. Senior Renee Manges had five assists and junior Sam Karas had four aces. Junior Cassie Morrison finished with three kills.
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