The Craig County volleyball team will have a busy week with four matches in seven days.
The Rockets were scheduled to host Parry McCluer to open the stretch on Tuesday, but that was too late for press deadlines. On Thursday they play another Pioneer District match against Bath County on the road, and on Saturday they take a trip to Bland County High for a 2 pm afternoon game. The busy stretch concludes next Monday in Roanoke with a 6:30 pm match against Roanoke Valley Christian.
Craig comes into the week at 2-7 after dropping their first two district matches last week. On September 16 they lost in four sets to Narrows. After taking the first set, 25-20, the Green Wave won the next three, 25-12, 25-12 and 25-21.
“Narrows was our opener to the Pioneer District games and the girls came out excited and ready to go,” said coach Suzanne Crawford. “We won the set and then we couldn’t pull the win for the next two.”
Annalese Zimmerman led the team with six kills. Cheyanne Bell had five kills and four blocks and Emily Smith had a strong all-around match with five kills, five blocks, 22 digs and an ace. Annika Zimmerman and Felicity Fisher had a pair of aces each while Jenna Boitnotte and Natalie Fisher had 10 assists each. Laiken May had 10 digs.
“We had had a lot of missed serves and some errors on serve receive,” said Crawford. “Emily had an amazing game and Annalese and Cheyanne did great on the net. Blocking and passing was the game changer for this game and something we are continuing to work on.”
On Thursday the girls were back home to host Eastern Montgomery and again they got off to a hot start, winning the first set 25-22. However, once again they couldn’t keep up the pace as the Mustangs won the next three, 25-15, 25-17 and 25-14.
Smith had 10 blocks and 21 digs to go with three kills against East Mont. Bell had four kills and five blocks, Annalese Zimmerman had 19 digs and Donithan had three kills.
“East Mont was another great game,” said Crawford. “The same thing happened. The girls came out and won the first set, we just couldn’t pull off the next three. Blocking again was the game changer for this game.
“We didn’t miss many serves and our passing was good,” continued Crawford. “We just needed to be stronger on the net, even though Emily had another amazing game. The girls are playing great but we need to work on finishing strong and playing consistently throughout each set.”
