Carson High volleyball overcomes sluggish start to win

Carson High’s girls volleyball team did their best Jekyll & Hyde imitation against Galena Tuesday night at Morse Burley Gym.

The Senators missed five serves and then had nine ballhandling or hitting errors in a 27-25 loss in the opening set. Carson cruised in the next three sets, winning 25-2, 25-14 and 25-11 to improve to 7-2 in league play.

Carson travels to Reno Thursday to play league-leading Bishop Manogue at 6 p.m. The Miners are unbeaten in league. “We came out pretty flat the first game,” Carson coach Robert Maw said. “There was some emotional hangover from our trip to Arizona. We got beat up pretty good (1-6). We didn’t play that badly. It really should have been a sweep tonight. The mandate was to show me some inspired volleyball.”

That was the case the last three games.

In the second set, Kylie Riske started the game with a kill to get the ball back for the Senators, who then reeled off 13 straight points with Skylar Swartz on the service line to take a 14-0 lead. Swartz had two aces in that run, Juliana Anderson had two kills and Riske added another kill. The rest of the points came off Galena hitting errors.

Ali French had back-to-back kills to make it 14-2, but Carson scored the next 11 points as Riske had three kills and a stuff block and Anderson added two aces.

“Skylar gave us a spark off the bench,” Maw said. “We worked hard with her on serving yesterday (Monday). Every time she missed a serve she had to do a ladder.”

The third set was close for a while with the teams trading small runs.

Carson was leading just 7-6 in the third set when it went on a 13-4 run for a 20-10 lead. Jaycie Roberts (11 kills, 22 digs) and Natalie Anderson (32 assists, 20 digs, 4 blocks) took care of the first four points thanks to two kills and two aces, respectively. After Galena closed to 12-9 on two Carson errors, the Senators scored eight of the next nine points. Juliana Anderson had three kills in the surge. The Senators were able to close out the match on two kills by Riske (10 kills, 6 blocks), a kill by Natalie Anderson and another kill by Roberts, who played her best league match in recent weeks.

The fourth set was another laugher, as the Senators scored 17 of the first 22 points. Middle Maddie Jergesen finally broke loose and had all four of her kills in that stretch. Roberts added a couple of kills and Juliana Anderson served up two of her eight aces.

“Maddie wasn’t getting set the first three games,” Maw said. “We need to work on making sure both our middles get set.”

The Senators could have used some help in the middle the first game, which was tied 13 times before Galena broke a 25-all tie by scoring on a Roberts hitting error and a stuff block by Kaitlin O’Connor.

Maw pointed more toward the service issues in the opening set.

“We served horribly the first game,” he said. The Senators weren’t alone, as the Grizzlies missed six serves.

Maw, however, was happy to get back on the winning track. He was pleased with the play of Abby Pradere, who started at libero in place of Makenzie Tucker, and Riske.

“Abby did a good job of passing the ball,” Maw said. “Kylie had a good night in the middle. I’m glad we finally got settled down.”

NOTES: Keelin Pilgrim has left the program to concentrate on academics. Dejarrah Navarro has been called up from the JV squad to replace Pilgrim...The game will be televised and shown on a tape delayed basis at 7 p.m. on Channel 21.