Errors doom G-A vs. York Suburban
The good news for Greencastle-Antrim is that it returns the majority of its girls volleyball team.
The bad news is, despite one of the Blue Devils' strongest seasons in recent memory, they met their match Saturday afternoon in the first round of the District 3 Class 3A playoffs.
York Suburban boasted a strong set of blockers that G-A just couldn't seem to find a way around in a 3-0 loss.
"They had a nice block on their side, and we didn't adjust to that well," Greencastle coach Corry Eagler said. "We can fool blockers quite well, but we barely did. I think we were just trying to pound, and that wasn't going to work."
But Greencastle's biggest enemy Saturday was itself.
The Blue Devils (11-9) finished with 18 hitting errors and didn't score more than 14 points until the final set, which it lost 25-20.
"We never settled in," Eagler said. "Passing wasn't horrible, but we just didn't get into a rhythm at all with our hitting. They got upset so quickly at themselves that they were never able to pull themselves out. The third game was a little closer, but you could still feel we just couldn't get anything going."
G-A sophomore Rachel Verhoef said, "I think everybody was getting mad at each other for no reason, and we were just having an off game. We should've just gotten our positivity up, so that was frustrating."
Greencastle gave the Trojans (13-5) a run for their money in the third set and even led by as many as three points midway through the frame. But once York Suburban took a late lead, it won seven of the last 10 points to ensure the victory.
"What we've been working on lately is just making sure we're taking care of the ball on our side," Suburban coach Sonia Guyer said. "Fortunately, our defense and our offense has been playing well lately, so when it's clicking on all those cylinders, it seems to show."
Despite the loss, Greencastle still has a lot to look forward to.
"We're very excited for the coming years," Eagler said. "I think it's going to be a good program. We started something this year, and we had a lot of really big wins, which was great. I think it's the start of something; I think it'll just keep going up from here."