FALLON " The Galena Grizzlies volleyball team used strong late-game play to defeat the Fallon Greenwave, 25-18, 25-20 and 25-18 at Elmo Dericco Gym.
The win improved fifth-place Galena to 4-7 in Sierra League play and 12-16 overall and kept its playoff hopes alive. The Grizzlies seldom trailed in sweeping the season series over the Greenwave.
"It was a little slow at times," Galena coach Megan Svare said. "There were runs by both teams, but we picked it up and got some good serves in. We tried some different things, and ran a quicker offense. They did well."
After winning the first game, Galena built a 10-4 lead in the second game behind five kills by Emily Aguiar, and never relinquish the lead. Fallon rallied twice to close the gap to three, at 13-10 and 23-20, but couldn't come any closer. Bree Crook scored the winning point on a dink.
Fallon started strong in the third game, building a 5-3 lead behind kills from Kenyah Brown and Callie Black and three Galena errors. Things see-sawed a bit and the game was tied twice, at 6-6 and 12-12 before the Grizzlies pulled away with an 11-4 run to put the game, and the match, away. Dinks and kills by Aguiar and Brook Keever, plus five Fallon errors, fueled the run. Keever and Bree Crook added kills in the final stretch. Match point came on a carry by Fallon's Sydnee Weddell.
"We have a pretty good block and we made sure we did that part of our job right," Svare said. "And our quicker offense worked out well."
The loss was the 15th in a row for the Lady Wave, dropping them to 3-23 overall and keeping them winless in league play at 0-9.
"I'm seeing major improvement in our girls," assistant coach Karl Marsh said. "The digging and service-receive errors are half of what they've been. We made some mental mistakes, but so did Galena and we were able to hang with them through each game until the last third, but they have some good hitters who were able to put away quite a few hits that we weren't able to dig."
Though it's been a difficult season, Marsh indicated that he's seen improvement all along the way.
"We're not just giving up by the second game. Were fighting through," Marsh said. "Last week against Damonte Ranch, we held the No. 2 team in the polls in every game and made them play their first string the whole game. And tonight we held Galena point-for-point until the end. I think we've seen major improvement. We're right there."