Spikers split games over weekend

Host powerhouse Sanford this Friday

Last Friday night, the Titan volleyball team hosted the league opponent Center Vikings for parents and senior night. Historically, the Vikings have provided a mental challenge for the Titans. This match proved sometimes the toughest opponent is within an athlete’s mind and not on the other side of the court.
The Titans played sluggishly but were able to take the first two sets 25-20 and 25-13. In the third set, mental errors replaced confidence and self-doubt created frenzied play on the part of the entire team and the Titans dropped the third set 19-25.
Volleyball is a game of momentum. As a result, the Titans struggles only gave the Viking team confidence. The Vikings were able to take full advantage of the frenzied Titans and the Titans dropped the set quickly 11-25. Now the Titans had their backs against the wall and would have to pull themselves together to try and win the final fifth set of the match.
The fifth set started in favor of the Titans who jumped out to a quick two point lead but the inability to put an extended point run together all night still plagued the team. There were several extended rallies with the crowd and coaches holding their breath as the Titans maintained a slight 11-10 lead. Two more epic rallies put the Titans at a 14-13 advantage before the Titans finally took the set 15-13 and the match 3-2.
The stats revealed the Titans had more hitting errors than kills and produced successful passes less than 50 percent of the time and only emphasized what the crowd witnessed as the Titans struggled with every aspect of the game and failed to play confidently together.
Saturday morning the Titans boarded the mini buses to face the always-tough team from Sargent. The struggling Titans were going to have to find a way to refocus quickly.  Unfortunately, the woes continued for the Titans as they fell 8 points behind immediately in the first set. The disjointed Titans struggled with all aspects of the game and quickly lost the first set 7-25. The Titans showed little to no improvement in the second set making unforced mental error after error and lost 8-25.
The Titans could have chosen to roll over but they showed some grit. Near the end of the second set the Titans began to battle and extend play even if they could not hold on to win the point. Those rallies seemed to spark something within the team and they began working together in the third set.  They worked hard, dove for and chased down balls and played smarter and found some holes in the Farmer defense and finally forced the Farmers to make some errors as the Titans battled and pulled out a 25-20 win.
Unfortunately, the Titans were unable to capitalize on the momentum of the third set and fell behind at the beginning of the fourth set. They continued to compete and scratched their way back to stay in the match before finally dropping the fourth set 19-25 and the match 1-3. With one win and one loss the Titans record stands at 7-3 overall for the season.
The Titans will have to work hard in practice and try and pull themselves together as a team because they host the undefeated Sanford team (6-0) on Friday, September 21 at 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. Then on Saturday, the Titans hit the road again for match against Cripple Creek.