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2007-2008
Antelope Valley Girl's
By ROBERT JOHNSON
Valley Press Sports Editor
The Falcons flashed a powerful front line that sent balls flying over the next - sometimes on target, at other times wildly off the mark. They showed the ability to overcome mental mistakes, but also committed so many miscues that they had no chance to win a game.
But the most impressive thing Palmdale displayed Tuesday night at Lancaster High School was character.
The Falcons (5-8, 2-4) were error prone through the first two games of their match with the host Eagles, but rallied to win the third game before falling apart in the fourth game of a 25-13, 25-18, 23-25, 26-24 loss that brought the Golden League season to its midway point.
For Lancaster (6-4, 5-2) it was a case of playing well enough to win. The Eagles were consistently solid throughout the match, and that proved to be the deciding factor. While Palmdale bashed balls for overpowering kills or errors that netted points for the hosts, Lancaster played strong back-row defense and put together timely hits.
That was most obvious in the first game, when the Eagles scored 19 of their 25 points on the Falcons' flubbings.
"It's been a continuous problem, and we work on it all the time," coach Jarrod Cline said. "We work on serving and passing in every practice."
Palmdale limited the errors but still committed more than a dozen mistakes in the second game, as Eagles middle blocker Ashley Robinson controlled the play at the net by repeatedly coming up with blocks to stifle the Falcons' attempts to rally when they did play well.
"The first two games she was just wailing away on us," Cline said.
When Robinson wasn't swatting balls back over the net - she tallied five of her match-high dozen blocks in the first two games - Alectra Edison was recording kills. The outside hitter slammed down a match-high 15 point-scoring hits, more than half of those coming in the opening games, when it appeared the Eagles would finish the evening with an easy sweep.
But something clicked for Palmdale in the third game. The Falcons cut down their mistakes and began playing with more chemistry, turning what were points for Lancaster in the first two games, to opportunities to hit for a powerful front line.
Palmdale averted a three-game loss with controlled power play from Quinn Williams, Tijera Mathews and Courtney Dickerson to help the Falcons rally from early 6-2 and 10-7 deficits to get the win.
"They were making a lot of errors early in the match, then that third game they really eliminated them," Eagles coach Dave Gutierrez said. "Obviously their confidence shot way up."
With a newfound confidence and improved play, Palmdale jumped on Lancaster to start the fourth game. The Falcons took a 9-1 lead with solid blocking, strong hitting and mistake-free defense and serving.
Robinson shut down an 8-0 run with a kill, and Palmdale played sloppy long enough to let the Eagles pull to within 11-7, before the Falcons responded with an 8-2 run that gave them a commanding 18-9 lead.
"I tried to tell them that we need to keep momentum on our sides," Cline said. "When we get some momentum going, we're a good team. Sometimes it seems like we forget that's how we do best."
The teams traded points and rallies long enough for Palmdale to get to game-point with a 24-13 lead before the meltdown began.
"We're the nervous ones, we've got to win the game," Cline said. "We needed one point and they got, what, 10 in a row?"
It was worse than that.
All the things that had gone right for the 40 points that the Falcons scored over two games to get back in the match vanished, and the Eagles put together a furious rally led by Robinson, Edison and libero Seferina Starks, who tallied three of her four service aces during Lancaster's 13-0 run that closed out the match.
"What you saw that team do, is as we started to score some points, is that they started to play real careful," Gutierrez said. "If they had kept hitting those balls and going after us one of those balls would have gotten through. Maybe they lost some aggressiveness there at the end. My girls stayed aggressive and kept taking chances, and that worked for us."
And just like that the match was over.
