| Chelsey Timothy (12) looks on as Marquette Hill bumps the ball toward teammates to set up a play. The Lady Vikings are undefeated in Region 18 play and the future looks rosy for them as they hopefully head towards the state tournament. While there are five seniors on the team this year, only one of them is a returning starter from last year. |
Last year almost everyone in Region 18 dreaded playing against West Desert and East Carbon’s volleyball teams. They knew the chances were that they would get blown out.
This year those people only have one of those programs to fear, East Carbon’s.
With the loss of key seniors from both squads, the Lady Hawks and Lady Vikings were considered long shots before the season began to go to state this year. But while the Hawks value has pretty much lived up to those predictions, the Lady Vikings must not have heard that they are supposed to lose this year. So far they have pretty much walloped everyone they have faced and are a perfect 2-0 in Region 18 play after defeating the Hawks in two sets on Tuesday night.
In the first set the Lady Vikes dominated 15-1 and 15-7, as they made winning look easy.
However it was a bit more of a struggle in the second set. But still the East Carbon kids won 15-12 and 15-6.
The only challenge the team seemed to have is with itself. In the first game of the second set, West Desert was able to go up 6-0 and then 10-2. In time it was 12-6 and then the East Carbon team got serious and came back to win.
“They just had to settle down and play,” said coach Alisa Preston on Wednesday morning.
For those uninitiated, 1A volleyball teams do not usually play home and home games during the season, because of the cost of travel between the schools, which in many of the small school regions in the state is a great distance. It’s more like a football schedule, where one year a team plays at home and the next year it reverses and they play at the other school. It’s is more like the football schedules in the larger schools, but with one important difference; they play two sets of games at the site where they compete.
The strength of this years team comes from all the members, with a few seniors leading the way.
In the games Tuesday night Chelsey Timothy led the team in serving with Amanda Hepworth not far behind.
The defense was anchored by one of last years starters Misty Valdez and Brittnie Leonard, who did not play last year, but did play as a sophomore.
With those important wins under their belt the team now plays in the Carbon High JV tournament this weekend. In this tournament, some of the 1A varsity teams face larger schools junior varsity teams.
Then they will return to league play next Tuesday when they face Wendover in the border town west of Salt Lake.
Their next home games will be on Sept. 24 against the Meridian Lady Mongooses.