By: BOBBY COZZIE
Staff Writer
The Titans volleyball team started fast and finished strong in a defeat of the Governors State University Jaguars for the second time this season.
The Titans used some high powered offense and timely defense to defeat the Jaguars in straight sets, 25-13, 25-20, and 25-19.
The Titans got out to an early lead in the first and appeared to dominate, but some errors and sloppy play allowed an overmanned Jaguars team to hang around, but the errors were infrequent and corrected throughout the match.
After having defeated the Jaguars earlier in the season the team had a large amount of confidence that they could win again.
“We knew kind of what to expect, and the one really good thing is they came out with a lot of confidence in themselves…we’ve been working really hard on that in practice, that’s something that they’ve been lacking,” head coach Jamie Ashmore said of her team.
The Titans played with their lineup, having a new starting lineup again, in hopes to find a good balance for the team. While giving a boost at times, it also added to a few let downs in the team’s performance and they had to come back in the third set to close out the match. The Titans didn’t lead in the third set until the Jaguars had already scored 13 points.
“It was us trying to figure out a lineup, if you notice every time that we play it’s a different lineup,” said coach Ashmore. “So it was kind of them trying to figure out the lineup and then taking it kind of easy,” she mentioned about her team’s performance in the final set. “We’re still trying to find a balance, people, people are playing well together, the one thing is I want to make sure the team plays well as a unit.”
Even after falling behind in the third set and not seeming to put up much of a fight, the team rallied and used big timely defensive stops, and used a block to score the final point of the game. “We’ve been working really hard on our blocking in practice,” said coach Ashmore, “So for us to end that way is perfect.
