Mistakes cost Chambersburg vs. Cumberland Valley
Chambersburg's girls volleyball team just didn't look like itself on Tuesday evening.
After battling to a five-set victory against Cumberland Valley in the teams' first meeting, the Trojans simply couldn't keep up in a 3-0 Mid Penn Commonwealth Division loss.
"We're just not playing real consistently right now," Trojan coach Ty Frelin said. "We're not playing with a lot of energy. It's not just one person, either, it's in general. We're lacking energy and excitement, and I'm still trying to figure out why that is."
Not only did the Trojans (11-5, 9-5 MPC) look a bit lackadaisical, Cumberland Valley (10-4, 9-4 MPC) also clearly wanted to avenge its earlier loss. The Eagles came out on fire, winning the first set, 25-14.
"You need to be able to control your serves to take the other team out of their offensive system, and we had to do that against Chambersburg," CV coach Jackie Orner said. "When they're in system, they're an extremely good team. We worked on serving aggressively at certain people and in certain zones."
Chambersburg senior Laken Myers said, "Our game plan was to try to take them out of their system, too, but it didn't really work. They definitely served well, and if we don't get good passes, it's hard to get a good hit off that."
That could be one of the main reasons for the Trojans' slew of errors. Chambersburg finished with a negative hitting percentage after committing 26 errors in the front row. Haylee Holsopple and Bailee Nitterhouse led the Trojan offense with just seven and six kills, respectively.
"I thought the second set, we played well, but we started shooting ourselves in the foot," Frelin said. "We were making unforced error after unforced error. We're just not mentally zoned."
Getting back in the zone will be Chambersburg's biggest focus over the next 11 days. District 3 Class 4A playoffs begin on Oct. 29, and the Trojans currently sit at 10th in the unofficial power rankings.
Frelin said, "We have a couple weeks now to make some corrections and find some answers. I told the girls tonight that it's a good thing this thing isn't two weeks from now, because if it was, we'd be done."