Pine began the 2015 volleyball season by defeating Varnado, 25-15, 25-11, 25-18, on the road Tuesday, Sept. 1.
The Lady Raiders were solid throughout in their serving, which helped them produce plenty of aces.
“The serving has tremendously improved since last year,” Pine coach Tammy Voth said. “We’ve got still got a few things we’ve got to work out, but they played really hard, so I’m really proud of them.”
The first set was close early on. Varnado led, 7-5, but the Lady Raiders came back with five in a row to go up 10-7. The first point of the run was a kill by Haley Stephens and three others were on aces by MiKayla Swint.
Varnado scored to trim the lead 10-8.
With the margin still two at 11-9, Pine put up three straight points for a 14-9 advantage.
Varnado, which is in its third year of having volleyball, came back. The Lady Cats went on a 5-0 run and tied the game at 14-apiece.
But Pine’s serving continued to be on target, as the Lady Raiders ran off the next nine points. During the run, Kaitlin Naive posted six aces, Swint downed a kill and the Lady Raiders moved in front, 23-14.
Varnado scored the next point, but Pine tallied the final two, including an ace by Allison Stuart on game point in the 25-15 win.
Pine, which is in its fifth year of playing volleyball, scored five of the first seven points of the second game before the Lady Cats rallied back to trim it to 6-4.
The margin continued to be between two and four points for about half of the contest, but then Pine began to take control.
Up, 9-7, the Lady Raiders went on a 9-0 run. Karley Voth served four aces during the run and Callie Blackwell capped it off with a kill to make it an 18-7 game.
Varnado came back with a point.
Pine extended the lead to 23-8, but Varnado’s Yienna Kemp posted a kill, getting the lead down to 23-9.
The Lady Raiders scored the next point. Varnado avoided game point twice, but Pine put up the final point in the 25-11 win.
Pine came out in the third game with the opening four points, but Varnado battled back. The Lady Cats scored the next three, capped off by Tarralyn Moses’ ace to trim it to a one-point contest.
Pine scored the next four points to go up, 8-3.
Varnado answered with three straight, including the final point from Ashleigh Powe’s ace and it was 8-6.
Varnado continued to hang in and trailed 13-10 when the Lady Cats scored two in a row to get the deficit down to just one.
After a Pine timeout, the Lady Raiders scored two in a row before Varnado tallied two straight make it 15-14.
The Lady Raiders took control of the third game with nine points in a row. Blackwell had a kill during the run and Naive posted five aces, as Pine went on for the 25-18 win.
Varnado coach Karen Borden said she is pleased with the improvements her team has made and she talked about some of the volleyball skills her team is learning.
“They’re learning to set the ball up,” Borden said. “They’re learning to bump pass. They’re learning to do some things that will hopefully get them to a point where they can kill the ball.”
Borden said the players aren’t to that point yet, but added that her team is doing a better job of playing controlled organized volleyball.