Published: September 23, 2008 06:18 pm            

Eagles’ finish fourth at Ben Davis Invitational

Indianapolis — After splitting its first two contests of the week, winning against Clinton Prairie Tuesday, Sept. 16, and losing to Westfield two days later, the Zionsville Eagles volleyball team was looking for one thing Saturday at the Ben Davis Invitational — consistency.

The Eagles looked to have it in the first two games of the day defeating both Jennings County (25-19, 25-16) and McCutcheon (25-21, 25-23), but then lost in defeats to No. 1 ranked Muncie Burris and Ben Davis.

“Overall, we are still inconsistent,” Zionsville Head Coach Emily Hawthorne said. “In three or four of our games throughout the day we started with a big lead or we trailed by a lot, so it was battling uphill. But overall we didn’t play consistently in any of the matches.”

That was extremely evident in the final match of the day against Ben Davis. The match was for third place in the tournament with each team going 2-1 in pool play.

The Giants beat the Eagles 25-18, 16-25, 15-12, to win third place, leaving Zionsville to settle for fourth.

In game one, the Giants jumped out to a 13-2 lead in the game, thanks to poor passing by the Eagles. The lead shrunk to six on three occasions and five at 23-18, but the Giants rattled off two straight points to win game one.

Zionsville was the team to come out well in game two, taking a 10-3 lead thanks to two kills by Jenna Mitchell and three from Lindsey Barber. Ben Davis was able to cut it to a two-point advantage on a couple of occasions, including 13-11, but the Eagles scored seven of the next eight points and cruised into a third game.

But game three was a lot like game one, where numerous mistakes in passing put the Eagles in a 10-4 deficit. But the Eagles came storming back. Using a balanced attack, they were able to cut the lead to two points at 13-11 and again at 14-12, but the Giants closed it out.

“I think the biggest contributor to the slow starts was that all day we didn’t get ourselves mentally prepared to play,” Hawthorne said. “We would go through warm-ups, but we didn’t necessarily get the energy high and get ready to play.”

The Eagles still got a good finish, finishing second in its pool to the No. 1 ranked Muncie Burris and winning the other two contests.

The level of competition was perfect for the Eagles, according to Hawthorne.

“It was a good level for us, there were teams we could be competitive against,” Hawthorne said. “Playing against Muncie Burris is always a good measuring stick for us, they are one of the best teams in the state. It is good for us to go in and see how we stack up against them. I thought we had some great moments against them, but again we have to consistently play at that high level, until we can compete with them.”

Courtney Lauber led the team with 25 assists against the Giants. She was one of the bright spots for the Eagles the entire day.

Hawthorne said that Zionsville will be looking to change up its offense a little bit as the season comes to a close.

“I think that Courtney did a pretty good job today,” Hawthorne said. “We didn’t pass as well as we normally do and I thought she did a good job of getting to those passes and running our offense from that. We are really working with her to run a quicker offense and get our middles more involved and I thought she did a good job with that.”

The Eagles will continue with games with Harrison Sept. 25 and a rematch with Ben Davis Sept. 29.

During that time, Zionsville will work on technique. Hawthorne said the energy for normal matches hasn’t been a problem.

“We haven’t had tons of issues with consistency this season,” Hawthorne said. “We have to continue to mentally prepare ourselves. Tournaments are hard because you play then are off, then you play again. It’s hard to get up for each match. We do a pretty good job of that when we play in the regular season. I am more concerned with some of the technical things we need to improve. But, I am very pleased with where we are and what the girls are doing.”

        

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