SYRACUSE - The Wawasee Warriors had enough to compete for one game, but were otherwise dominated by the visiting Warsaw Tigers Thursday in high school volleyball action.
The Tigers improved to 3-2 in the Northern Lakes Conference with the 25-6, 25-23, 25-12 victory, improving to 14-5 overall.In picking up that 14th win, Warsaw wasted little time against Wawasee, dispatching the Warriors by 19 points in the opening game.
"We haven't really started like that all year," Warsaw coach Mike Howard said of the quick 25-6 opening-game win. "So it was kind of nice to come out that way. Everyone served the ball well, and we just kind of overwhelmed them with our service game."
In the opener, Wawasee was never able to get their defense going, allowing the Tigers to tee off numerous times for convincing kills. In the game, Warsaw sophomore Natalie Decker posted five of her match-high eight kills, while sophomore Krista Bragg added another three.
Displaying the Tigers' versatility at the net, Bragg followed Decker's eight kills with four of her own, the same number as senior Tara Akers and junior Sarah Shilling.
"That's a sign of a successful team," Howard said of his front row. "We're building towards having multiple weapons, trying to keep the other blockers guessing where the ball is going to go, and not be too predictable."
The Warriors picked up on where the Tigers were trying to go in the second game, jumping out to a quick 9-2 lead.
"You just know they're going to come back hard," Howard said. "It's a rivalry match, it's an NLC game, so you know they're going to rebound and come out tough."
Wawasee did come out tough, but two 6-0 runs by the Tigers eventually helped the road team take the lead at 16-15. The Warriors did stay within 23-22, but eventually fell 25-23.
"It was confidence," Wawasee coach Amy Miller said about her team's second game turnaround. "That's all it is. When we have confidence, we play very well and do the right things. We communicate, we cover. When our confidence is down, or one person's confidence is down, it kind of pulls some of the others down. That's what happened in the first game - we couldn't get any rhythm at all."
The second game saw the Warriors' defense digging more balls, as well as getting their hands on Tiger attacks.
"We showed that we could read them and play with that type of ball," Miller said of her team, which was led by junior Adrienne Drook's match-high three blocks. "We just have to do it all at once before we can play at that level for a whole game."
After noticing the Warriors' defense getting their hands on more attacks, the Tiger hitters went another route - the tip.
"We're trying to learn to be smarter," Howard said. "We want to be good swingers, but we want to be smart hitters as well. If we hit with the same tempo, just going up and blasting the ball, their defense gets used to that. A smart hitter backs you up and then drops the ball. It really makes you guess what the hitter is going to do."
That strategy helped in the third game, as Warsaw regained its first game form, winning 25-12.
The Tigers host their own invitational Saturday at10 a.m. The Warriors will take their 8-14 record to the Homestead Invitational Saturday, beginning at 9 a.m.
