JAMESTOWN — A night after falling in three sets to an Ohio Heritage Conference opponent, host Greeneview handed Xenia a three-set defeat, Wednesday Sept. 12 at Greeneview High School.
Greeneview coach Tracey Hollenbaugh was pretty happy with how her players responded after Tuesday night’s three-set loss to Milford Center Fairbanks. Wednesday’s 25-5, 25-19, 25-12 win over Xenia showed her that her team has already put that Fairbanks lost behind them.
“They responded really well tonight,” Hollenbaugh said. “We distributed the ball well and we played some good defense. I’m very happy with how well the girls played.”
Behind solid opening serves from Amanda Mickle, Greeneview (9-3) charged out to a commanding 12-0 lead in the first set. The sophomore setter led the Rams with four service aces for the match. She also was Greeneview’s best with 10 digs.
Rams hitters Madyson Brittingham and Ashley Schloss, Mickle, and setter Bryce Ratliff combined to score six of the Rams’ final points in the opening set for the dominating 25-5 win.
Xenia (2-8) played a better overall match in the second set. The Buccaneers had the match tied up at 9-, 11-, 13- and 14-all before Greeneview blocks by Caitlin Sweat and Maddie Hines, a Mickle ace and two Hines kills enabled the Rams to pull away to the 25-19 second-set win.
Again Greeneview jumped to an early lead in Set 3. This time, Xenia pulled within 6-4 on Grace Brown’s service ace. But Greeneview reeled off the next 10 points to take command of that set as well. After Xenia’s Camille Hughes bashed an ace serve to make the score 20-12 in the Rams’ favor, Xenia gave up the final five points of the match on Buc miscues and mishits.
Hines led Greeneview with 10 kills, and Schloss finished with six kills and three blocks.
Bucs coach Jessica Threats said the team played without one of its leading hitters. That put Xenia’s rhythm out of whack against Greeneview.
“We’ll have played five straight matches at the end of this week, and we’ll have three more matches back-to-back-to-back next week. We lost one of our top hitters to an injury two nights ago, Heidi Alex. So we’re trying to adjust to playing without one of our main players, while playing our matches. It’s been tough.”
Unofficially, Xenia’s Hughes led the Bucs with three kills, a block and a service ace.
Both teams return to league action for their next match. Greeneview heads north to take on OHC foe West Liberty-Salem at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14, while Xenia is back in Greater Western Ohio Conference play with a Saturday Sept. 16 road trip north to take on Piqua in a noon contest.
