Geoff Boyer goes over strategy with the team at a recent match.
The Craig County volleyball team saw their season come to an end with a loss in the quarterfinal round of the Pioneer District tournament. The Rockets dropped a grueling five-setter at Bath County.
The Rockets had some chances to win. They were up 19-14 in the first game but Bath scored 11 of the next 12 points to win the set.
Craig won the second and third sets, 25-16 and 25-20, and looked to be in control. However, The Chargers charged back and won the fourth set, 25-17, to tie the match at two sets each.
“Losing that first set really hurt,” said Craig coach Geoff Boyer. “We were in position to win and let it get away. We shouldn’t have had to go to that fourth set.”
The wheels came off for Craig in the fifth and final set to 15. Craig scored first but Bath won the volley and got the point. Then Bath served 10 straight points and took an 11-0 lead. The Rockets tried to battle back, and won eight of the next 12, but still lost the final set, 15-8.
Senior Taylor Sloss, in her last Rocket volleyball game, had 23 assists, nine kills and four blocks for the Rockets. Jaci McAlwee had 11 kills and Nicole Austin had six kills and three aces.
The Rockets finished the season at 5-19 and could have done much better. The loss to Bath kept them from advancing to the regional tournament, a goal of the team.
“We got in the habit of losing the close ones,” said Boyer. “We played some bigger schools tough, and we had some talent.”
Craig was also hurt when senior middle hitter Tierrney Zysk went down with an injury and missed the entire season. That left Craig with just two seniors, Sloss and Ava Myers. However, the jayvee team won eight matches and, with a young team, the girls will return with a more experienced lineup next year.
“Both our middle hitters were freshmen and we had two sophomores at outside hitter,” said Boyer. “We’ll miss our setter(Sloss) but Ashleigh Peters will return and she did a good job when she was in there. She’ll be our setter next year.”
Boyer returned to the bench late in the spring and didn’t have time to set up as many off-season functions as he would have liked. He’s now back in the saddle full time and ready to ride.
“We’re going to do a lot more off-season stuff this year,” he said. “It was fun to be back but we should have won more matches. Next year we have a chance to be pretty good.”
