Lady Tigers lose in straight sets to Western Brown

It was a disappointing end to the regular season Monday night when the McClain volleyball team lost to visiting Western Brown in straight sets, 3-0.

Things started really well in the opening set where the Lady Tigers, behind the serving of senior Kylea Toney, took an early 5-0 advantage and continued to lead until the Lady Broncos tied it at 11-11.

After that, both teams flip-flopped leads until Western Brown grabbed the lead 19-18 and held on to a hard-fought 25-21 first-set victory.

The second game of the match was also another back and forth one where each team again held leads, but like in the first set, Western Brown seemed to take control late and won another close one by an identical 25-21 score.

In the third and final game, the Lady Broncos led from start to finish and won somewhat easily, 25-16, to take the game and the match.

“It seems like we’ve lost that edge and the confidence that we had earlier in the season and haven’t been able to get it back,” said McClain head coach Taylor Alsop. “I thought last week on senior night we might have turned that around, but since then it looks to be fading away again.

“Another thing that has been hurting us is our communication on the floor hasn’t been what it needs to be.

“I think our defense adjusted pretty well to what they were doing tonight, and our coverage on the floor was good but we’re still having too many ups and downs and not very many positive runs,” Alsop continued. “Another thing is I’ve been trying to play everyone here lately, and it seems like everybody that’s playing is making mistakes. I can’t really pinpoint one single player or thing, and that seems to be another reason we’re having trouble getting back into a good groove.

“We start tournament play at Hillsboro Monday night, and how we play will depend on how we show up. “All we can do now is go back to work in practice and try to bounce back and hopefully play like we did earlier in the season. My girls are very capable of doing this.”

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