10/6/21 Whitmore Lake at Greenhills

8^th Grade

25 – 11, 17 – 25, 15 – 8

Last night Whitmore Lake traveled to Greenhills for a rematch against Greenhills trying to win two in a row against the Gryphons.  In the first set, Whitmore Lake was on fire.  Behind the serving of Olivia Kurtz and an awesome offensive barrage of three hit attacks, the Trojans were quickly up 6 – 1.  Another four points off the Isabel Lewis serve and five more from Piper Hunt put the Trojans in command, up 15 – 4 after just four rotations.  On nearly every Trojan possession, Whitmore Lake would use all three of their hits, making good passes to the setter and finishing with a spike including several powerful hits from Hunt and Aliyah Baker.  After allowing Greenhills to earn two points of their own serve, Hunt took the Trojans home for a dominating 25 – 11 first set win.  The second set was a slightly different story.  Whitmore Lake decided it was time to try to prove their coach wrong, who always says, “You can’t win, if you can’t get your serve in.”  Unfortunately for the Trojans, they had to find out the hard way that their coach is always right.  With the girls missing more than 50 percent of their serves and some defensive breakdowns Greenhills took advantage of the Trojan miscues, and stole the set 25 – 17.  Now with the Gryphons on a roll and feeling extremely confident, could Whitmore pull it together in the third set to win the match?  Whitmore Lake won the coin toss to get the first serve in the third set but squandered the opportunity, giving up the first point.  Greenhills scored the next two for a 3 – 0 lead and things were looking shaky for the Trojans.  After a side out, the Kurtz serve tied the set up, but Greenhills wasn’t ready to throw in the towel yet and took the ball back with a side out.  Panic started to set in for Whitmore Lake, and the girls started to fall back into old habits of not trusting their teammates and trying to win the set on their own, just sending the ball over the net with free ball on one or two hits instead of relying on their team to get the job done with three hit attacks.  With Whitmore Lake in panic mode, Greenhills scored the next two to stay on top 5 – 3.  Finally on the third rotation, Whitmore Lake calmed down, and Lewis put together a string of serves to put the Trojans on top 9 – 5.  The Gryphons still had fight left in them, but Whitmore Lake had more and the Trojans didn’t allow Greenhills to score more than one point at a time, winning the set and match 15 – 8.  Hunt played her best match of the season with exceptional serving and power hitting.  Kylie Sechrist had her best night of setting, controlling the offense and assisting on numerous attacks, while Kurtz continues to show massive improvements from match to match.  In the first set, the girls looked outstanding, in an almost flawless performance with their communication and teamwork, and even though they came undone in the second set, it was great to see them come back together and take care of business when it counted most showing they are continuing to develop that attitude to win in rough situations when things aren’t going the best instead of crumbling and giving up.  The win moves the Trojans to a winning record for the first time this season at 4 – 3 (2 – 2 MIAC).  The girls are right back in action tonight with a rematch against Plymouth Christian in the high school gym.