Lady Rockets sweep past West Greene, 3-0 (copy)
ROGERSVILLE — The Jefferson-Morgan girls volleyball squad remained unbeaten in Section 5-A play after a 3-0 sweep of West Greene Thursday night.
The Lady Rockets (2-1, 2-0) jumped out to a 25-16 first set win, tallied the final three points in a 26-24 second set victory and then finished off the sweep with a 25-14 win in the third set.
“These girls are hard workers,” J-M coach Lisa Olson said. “I like the dedication and the discipline I have seen in the girls. They always bring a great attitude to the court and they want to improve every time out. Our passing wasn’t the best tonight, so I think we need to work on that and our communication.”
J-M was led by the play of junior Morgan Simkovic, who had 17 service points, eight aces and nine kills.
Other notable players to reach the stat sheet for the Lady Rockets were junior Kayla Yorko (11 service points, 4 aces, 6 assists), senior Jessica Taylor (11 digs), junior Camryn Dugan (8 service points) and senior Madison Dupont (7 service points).
J-M grabbed eight of the first 12 points in the opening set and held a 12-6 lead that forced West Greene to call a timeout.
The break in action didn’t slow the Lady Rockets down, as they ended the first set on a 10-6 run. Simkovic garnered five kills in the opening set.
“Tonight was one of Morgan’s better nights,” Olson said. “She was everywhere on the court for us. She was strong at the net and was really consistent in her serve. She just has to continue to trust her teammates and play within herself.”
J-M tallied the first three points of the second set and built a 9-6 lead before the Lady Pioneers (0-2, 0-1) rallied back and took their first lead of the set at 13-12 after a service point by junior Lauren Wise.
“We have a hard time getting ahead and then staying ahead,” West Greene coach Chelsey Holloway said. “I liked our play in that second set, but sometimes we get down early on and we have a hard time coming back from that. We are a lot better than last year, and a lot of the younger kids have stepped up. We have an interesting dynamic on our team.”
After the teams exchanged runs, West Greene broke a 20-20 deadlock and was one point away from grabbing the second set, but J-M’s Taylor was clutch on the service line with three straight points to capture the win.
“Jessica is one of our seniors and she stepped up in the second set,” Olson said. “We needed to get back the momentum and get some points from the service line. That’s the type of performance we expect to see from our seniors.”
In the third set, the Lady Rockets built leads of 7-4, 15-7 and 20-10 before collecting five of the final nine points of the set for the sweep.
The Lady Pioneers were led by junior Kaitlin Kreuzer (five assists), junior Vanessa Black (13 service points/four aces), sophomore Emily Tedrow (10 service points/three aces) and sophomore Emily Goodwin (five digs).