Volleyball: AFC outlasts Lady Hubs in three sets

Rochelle starts strong but falls 25-13, 18-25, 20-25

Russell Hodges
Posted 8/20/18

The Rochelle varsity volleyball team tipped off its season against Ashton-Franklin Center on Tuesday, and the thrilling three-set match had nearly every spectator in the gym standing and applauding as both squads battled to a gritty finish.

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Volleyball: AFC outlasts Lady Hubs in three sets

Rochelle starts strong but falls 25-13, 18-25, 20-25

Posted

ASHTON — The Rochelle varsity volleyball team tipped off its season against Ashton-Franklin Center on Tuesday, and the thrilling three-set match had nearly every spectator in the gym standing and applauding as both squads battled to a gritty finish.

Rochelle started strong with a decisive first-set victory, but the Lady Hubs were unable to carry their momentum over to the final two sets. AFC bounced back with a win in the second set before overcoming an early deficit to take the tiebreaking set and hand Rochelle its first loss of the year by a final score of 25-13, 18-25, 20-25.

The Lady Hubs (0-1) will face Dixon in their home-opener on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

“We proved ourselves in the first set but we only showed glimpses over the next two sets,” head coach Molly Sly said. “We need to learn how to be consistent and come out each set with the same fire. When we put the ball over the net, it needs to be a challenge. We had too many easy tips over the middle of the court where their players could get the ball right back.”

Not much was going right for the Lady Raiders in the opening set, as Rochelle quickly built an 8-2 lead over AFC behind several kill shots from senior Emma Mehrings, who finished with nine kills and 10 digs for the Lady Hubs. Rochelle sealed the first set with a well-placed serve by senior Grace Orlikowski, who ended the evening with a team-high four aces.

The Lady Raiders turned things around in the middle set, though, going on a 7-3 run to start the set while forcing Rochelle to utilize its first timeout of the match. AFC led 20-12 before the Lady Hubs rallied for a 5-1 stretch behind junior Katie Van Hise, who recorded a team-best 12 kills in the match. Senior Sarah Craven anchored the Lady Hub defense, ending the match with a team-high 15 digs.

The brief scoring burst from Rochelle wasn’t enough, however, as AFC scored four of the next five points to force the tiebreaking set.

“Sarah [Craven] had some really good passes for us early on,” Sly said. “I don’t know what happened over the next two sets… We were tipping the ball more instead of going at the ball and putting it away. We just have to keep trying to put the ball away and have the mentality that it’s not coming back over to our side.”

The Lady Hubs showed plenty of promise to start the third set, taking a 6-1 lead after capitalizing on some Lady Raider miscues to force an AFC timeout. Playing to a packed home crowd, the Lady Raiders began gaining steam as Rochelle suddenly found itself out of rhythm on defense. AFC scored 17-of-27 points to force two Lady Hub timeouts and take an 18-16 lead.

Some service errors by the Lady Raiders late in the third set kept Rochelle around, but AFC nailed down 7-of-11 points down the stretch to seal the tiebreaker and win the match.

“They served the ball much better over the second half of the match,” Sly said. “They didn’t make as many mistakes, and we weren’t able to capitalize when we had the chance.”

The Rochelle sophomore volleyball team defeated AFC on Tuesday by a score of 25-17, 25-8 to improve to 1-0 on the season. The Rochelle freshman volleyball team also won on Tuesday, moving to 1-0 as well.