Northmor’s Lizzie Erlsten sets the ball against Mount Gilead Thursday night.
Rob Hamilton | Morrow County Sentinel
The Northmor volleyball team was able to work around some rough play in the middle two sets to outlast Mount Gilead in a road KMAC match on Thursday.
In their 25-13, 23-25, 25-19, 25-12 victory, Northmor was able to overcome uneven play that head coach Shelbie Wiseman felt was a product of a very busy schedule at this point of the season.
“We’re on game four this week, so any win is a good win for us,” she said. “The girls are tired and it showed tonight.”
It didn’t show in the early going, as the Golden Knights got two points from Makayla Sutton and seven by Jillian Zeger to help them turn a 10-6 lead into a commanding 20-7 advantage on their way to cruising to a 1-0 lead in the match.
The second set would be a vastly different story. After Lizzie Erlsten scored twice to open the game, Mount Gilead took over with a huge run. After getting the ball back with the score 2-1 in favor of Northmor, the Indians got eight straight points by Olivia Long to jump in front of their opponents. Faith White would add one score and Cassady Irwin picked up three more as MG pushed their advantage to a 15-4 score.
“They definitely have shown improvement,” said Indian coach Lyndsay Wyeth. “They played very well tonight. I feel we got gypped on a few calls that kind of went the other way and kind of got their momentum down a little bit.”
Northmor would attempt to rally in the set, getting one point each from Sutton, Zeger and Erlsten before Kallie Wright tallied four in a row to make it a 20-16 score. The team added a point from Maya Trainer and two more from Zeger to get as close as 24-23 before the Indians would get a defensive point to win the set and tie the match at 1-1.
Wiseman noted that her team made mistakes in that set, including several missed serves and some on-court communication issues, but added that Mount Gilead’s play had a big role in how things unfolded.
“We had a lot of abnormal things for us, but Mount Gilead came out and they were aggressive in set two and they continued to be the more aggressive team, I think, until we were.”
The third set was back-and-forth until its late stages. Northmor jumped out to an 8-2 lead thanks to three points from Erlsten and two by Mary Dean, but Mount Gilead would battle back. A defensive point and two from the serving of Lindsey Ayers made it an 8-5 game. Then, with the score 9-6 in favor of the Golden Knights, Camryn Travis served four straight points to put the Indians in front.
Northmor’s Sutton and MG’s Abby Leonhard traded brief runs to keep the score tight, but with the score tied at 15, the home team got four straight by White to open up a four-point lead.
They would not be able to keep the momentum, though. After a defensive point for Northmor cut the Indian lead to 19-16, Wright stepped up to the service line and didn’t relinquish control until she had scored nine straight points to win the set.
Mount Gilead would not be able to recover from that setback. Northmor opened the fourth set with five points by Erlsten and didn’t look back. Sutton added a four-point run and both Erlsten and Wright added three-point bursts as the Golden Knights pulled away for a 25-12 win and a 3-1 decision in the match.
While disappointed in the final result, Wyeth feels her team’s effort against Northmor, if duplicated in the future, could wind up being a positive for both this season and future years.
“We’ve got two more games next week with teams we can do very well with if we play like we did tonight,” she said. “I feel like they have come together as a team. The building blocks are there and we’ve made some improvements. We’re just looking to continue to run with that and make those changes over the next couple seasons and hopefully see some improvements.”
After picking up the win to improve to 10-9 overall and 8-4 in KMAC play, Wiseman noted that her team’s busy schedule in recent weeks has been great preparation for the postseason.
“We’re ready for the postseason,” she said. “Getting through these past two weeks were the tough part for us. The four games per week where we’re tired, but we’re moving through it.”
Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS
