Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Gators vs. Freeze

By: TyLynn McKeever

         The third game of the year was against the Northern Freeze in the Swamp. The Gators were looking to correct their mistakes from the previous game for this one. The Gators played with a lot of heart throughout the whole night. The Freeze took all three sets from the Gators: 25-17, 25-21, and 9-25. The Gators started the first set out on a slow note, letting the Freeze get a quick lead right away. Poor serve receive passing hurt the Gators throughout set one. As the set went on they began to find the “green box” which resulted in some kills. They stayed hard nose and battled all the way to the end not giving up on one ball. Set two the Gators came out in a type of kill mode. They started set two off with a quick 11-4 lead on the Freeze. The lead started to slip away and turned into a Ping-Pong game and the Gators could not get to 25 first. Although they ended up losing the second set but also showed a lot of passion and heart! The Gators played the best they have all year in set two. Set three the Gators started off on the wrong note, letting the Freeze get a big lead in a hurry. The Gators were unable to battle back and the Freeze also took set three. Head coach Stacy Dahl commented, “The Gators played with lots of heart the first two games and executed some of the strategies we have worked on in practice. It was a good effort. We still need to be more consistent and play with fire ALL games versus one or two.” The Gators look to continue to correct their mistakes and control their side more for their next home game versus the Lake of the Woods Bears on September 15th. The Gators were led by Tori Mekash with 6 kills and Courtney Kirkeide with 4 kills. Vanessa Burkel had 8 assists and Shanyce Bishop had 2 assists. Shanyce Bishop and Katie Langaas each had two aces for the Gators. Gooooo Gators!!!

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