North Daviess takes out Lady T-Birds in four

It was too much of the old and not enough of the new as the Eastern Greene volleyball team dropped a 22-25, 16-25, 25-15, 18-25 Southwestern Indiana Athletic Conference decision at North Daviess Thursday night.

"We didn't bring our best game tonight," said EG coach Gina Ingram, whose Lady Thunderbirds fell to 8-14, 1-4 in the SWIAC. "We looked like the "old" Eastern team. The team that played hard against BNL on Monday stayed home tonight.

"We lacked foot speed and communication at many points in the match. North Daviess tipped us to death. Seeing that, I told the girls to shorten up on defense. We didn't and the tip got us again. That is a lack of mental focus. We didn't read the hitter well at all tonight. We would comment that we would see the tip, but it seemed that we expected someone else to step up and play it. "

Alyssa Nicholson tallied 12 digs, five kills and one block. Emily Hash had two digs and one kill.

Lucy Fager was 14 of 14 serving with one ace, 14 digs and eight kills. Brittany Sparks collected 19 assists, eight digs, three aces and two kills.

Sarah Cobine ended up with 10 kills, three aces, three digs and a block. Ashley Sanders dished out 15 assists to go with nine digs.

"Ashley Sanders, who hasn't see a lot of playing time lately, played very well tonight," said Ingram. "She had some nice digs and passes. She worked hard a getting the ball to our hitters and contributed 15 assists and she didn't play all four games.

"I was happy to see that when we gave her the nod, she came to play."

Alyssa Hauser had nine digs and one kill and Emily Bock added three digs, two blocks and a team-best 12 kills.

"Emily Bock was much more of a force tonight across the board," said Ingram. "I am a little scared to compliment her serving, but she did seem more confident at the service line. She has struggled some this year in this area, so going 11 for 13 is an improvement.

"At the net, she was aggressive and playing to find the holes in ND defense. With 12 kills and zero attack errors, she displayed the intensity that we need to see."

Ingram said they had problems getting their offense started.

Our biggest problem tonight was serve receive. North Daviess had one server that we couldn't handle. She didn't do anything out of the ordinary but served aggressively," said Ingram.

"We received standing up and swinging our arms instead of tracking the ball and absorbing the force. Seventeen receive errors is a lot of unforced errors. Add to it our 23 attack errors and we beat ourselves. In four games, I only have two positives. That is disappointing. I felt like we had gotten over a hump with four wins in a row and a solid performance against a good BNL team. Obviously I was mistaken."

The Lady Thunderbirds will compete at the North Knox Round Robin Saturday.