Nearly a week after taking down a pair of district rivals, the West Marion volleyball team had a hard time rekindling its success.
The Trojans hosted Seminary Aug. 9 and 38 ball-handling errors cost them in a 3-0 loss (25-18, 25-17 and 25-7). West Marion had just six kills, six assists and six aces as a team as consistency eluded the Trojans.
Their struggles continued Monday as the Trojans traveled to McComb and lost to the Tigers three sets to one. McComb won the first two sets 25-19 and 25-15 before West Marion rebounded with a 25-15 set win in the third. However, the Tigers regained control and ended the match with a 25-18, fourth-set victory.
“It’s all about consistency, and the last two matches we haven’t played very well,” head coach Todd Pittman said. “We made too many passing mistakes — against McComb we had more than 30 passing errors in two sets — and that’s free points for the other team. We need to be more consistent with stuff like that. We need to do all the little things right all the time. You can’t do them right half the time or a third of the time. You’re not going to win very much doing that.”
The Trojans improved their numbers across the board with Kaleigh Stringer pacing the squad with three of the team’s eight kills and Avery Holmes leading the way with four of West Marion’s 10 aces and seven assists.
One of the areas that cost the Trojans was converting 8-of-64 kill attempts with 17 errors, but Pittman said it comes back to the passing.
“With the attack errors, that’s going to come. Not every attack is going to go in. You’re going to hit some into the net, and I’m not really worried about the attack errors. That proves we’re doing our offense right when we’re getting attack attempts,” he said. “If we can’t get a pass up, you can’t get the offense going to where you can get an attack. We need to pass the ball consistently.”
The Trojans were in Hattiesburg Tuesday night to take on Sacred Heart, but results were unavailable at press time. They will host Richton next Tuesday at 6 p.m. before taking on North Forrest Thursday in Hattiesburg.
“Hopefully we can get to playing like we did the first weekend. It seems like we’ve regressed a little bit rather than progressed the last two matches,” Pittman said. “We just need to do the little things better.”
Pictured Above: West Marion's Megan Sanders strikes the ball over the net. | Photo by Joshua Campbell
