Freshman Abby Pradere goes after a tough dig agains Manogue Thursday night in Reno.
RENO — Anybody associated with high school volleyball in northern Nevada knows the road to the Division 1 state playoffs goes through Bishop Manogue this year.
However, Carson gave the Miners one of their best matches of the year before falling 22-25, 22-25 and 14-25 Thursday night.
The Miners remained undefeated, while Carson fell to 7-3. The Senators host rival Douglas Tuesday at 6 p.m.
“Obviously it was a disappointing night,” Carson coach Robert Maw said. “We could have won the first two sets. They killed us that third set. We played our hearts out.
“Our serve receive wasn’t very good in the third game. We came out amped up. We knew we were going to have to go five games (to win). I don’t know whether fatigue got to them or not.”
The Senators proved they are a legitimate regional contender.
“People say that they have to go through us,” BM coach Jason Sterrett said. “On our side we’re saying that it goes through Carson. They are the second-best team on our side. They gave us everything we could handle the first two games. In the third game, we got on a couple of service runs.”
The opening set featured eight ties and eight lead changes, as the teams were never separated by more than four points, Manogue had leads of 9-5, 12-8 and 24-20.
After a Katelyn Oppio block gave the Miners a 19-16 lead, the Senators stormed back to tie the game at 19 on kills by Jaycie Roberts and Kylie Riske plus an Oppio error. Manogue went up 21-19 on a hitting eror by Juliana Anderson and an ace by Oppio. After a Roberts kill made it 21-20, a kill by Julia Wenzel and back-to-back stuff blocks by Sara Pool gave the Miners a 24-21 lead.
Roberts came back with another kill and Manogue’s Mary Redl-Harg hit long to make it 24-22. Wenzel finished it off with a kill.
The second set followed much the same pattern. The score was tied 10 times with a like number of lead changes. Manogue’s biggest lead was five, 15-10, and Carson’s biggest lead was two points.
Two aces by Oppio helped the Miners gain the 15-10 lead, but Carson fought back to 16-14 on kills by Juliana Anderson and Roberts plus an ace off the net by Abby Pradere.
From there, the game was tied at 17, 18, 19 and 20-all.
Maddie Jergesen’s quick-set kill gave the Senators their last lead of the set, 21-20, Manogue roared back with four straight points on two kills and a stuff block by Wenzel.
Jergesen’s stuff block made it 24-22 before Wenzel finished off the Senators with a kill.
Whether it was fatigue or the Senators were emotionally flat after the first two sets, the Miners took advantage. Carson, because it didn’t handle serves well was forced to play a lot of downballs in the final game, and you can’t do that and expect to win against a good team like Manogue.
Manogue got off to a 5-1 lead thanks to two aces by Becca Smith. Carson fought back to 8-6, as Juliana Anderson had an ace and kill in that surge. Two aces and a dink by setter Mikaela DeRicco made it 12-6. A tip by Riske and kill by Roberts made it 14-10 before the Miners exploded for seven straight points for a 21-10 lead.
Oppio, who finished with 13 kills on the night, had three to lead the way. Allison Reviglio had two kills and Carson committed two errors.
“She (Oppio) is playing with a lot of confidence I haven’t see,” Sterrett said.
Carson had managed to do a decent job of defending Oppio in the first two games.
“We left a seam so she would hit it at Juliana and Jaycie who are our two best diggers,” Maw said. “The third game we closed it, and she found the openings.”
Most of the calls came on the slide play on the right-hand side. With a full head of speed, the powerful Oppio, who’s headed to Gonzaga, is tough to defend. If Carson hadn’t gotten to some balls, Oppio’s kill total could have been in the 20s.