Daviess County volleyball pulled off an impressive comeback at home, winning three straight sets to defeat Owensboro Catholic after trailing 2-0 (21-25, 21-25, 25-20, 25-22, 15-10).
The Lady Aces came out with a lot of intensity and quickly took an 8-3 lead to start the first set. The teams went back and forth trading points, but Owensboro Catholic always had an answer.
Despite them maintaining the lead throughout the opening set, Daviess County wasn’t going down without a fight and tried to chip away at its deficit. Regardless, a wild battle for the deciding point fell in favor of Owensboro Catholic to give them the set at 25-22.
The Lady Aces carried that momentum into the second set after a 2-2 tie to open, grabbing five straight points to jump out to a 7-2 lead.
They built their lead to 11-3 later in the set, but a 3-0 run had the Lady Panthers closing the gap at 15-9.
Later Daviess County continued to fight, using another 3-0 run to make it a 22-21 game and force a timeout. However, Owensboro Catholic came out of the timeout and won three straight to win its second straight set.
Assistant coach Becky Taylor said the team has been coming into matches with a lot of energy, wanting to be successful for Head Coach Brian Hardison who has had to miss the last two games.
“I guess they just really come in here really wanting to go,” Taylor said. “The coach has been out for two games and they’re really wanting to play good for him. So that’s basically how it works.”
While it looked like the Lady Aces were going to be able to walk away with a quick sweep, Daviess County had other plans.
The Lady Panthers battled with Owensboro Catholic in the third set with multiple ties taking place, but they never lost the lead with Newcom wrapping up the third set with a kill to take it 25-20.
The fourth set was a doozy, with neither team leading by more than two until Daviess County held a 13-9 lead.
Three ties later the Lady Panthers found themselves up 23-22 and gained another point on a costly net violation by Owensboro Catholic.
This set the Lady Aces up for Newcom to deliver another crucial kill to give them the 25-22 set win and force a deciding fifth set.
In the final set it was all Daviess County as their continually improved blocking throughout the match helped them create space and allowed them to win 15-10 and walk away with a solid comeback win.
Taylor said that she thought her team fought hard, but were running out of gas and needed to execute more late.
“I thought it was well-played by both teams,” Taylor said. “They weren’t giving up, they kept playing hard, kept fighting and [the final result] it’s just where the ball bounces.”
The Lady Aces early execution and intensity is what Daviess County Head Coach Tyla Bailey attributed their early success to.
“I think they were just executing and their energy probably intimidated us,” Bailey said. “Which Catholic is always a solid team, so we knew going into it that we had to be on point with everything we did.”
The Lady Panthers were able to shift momentum towards the third set and that had to do with strategic play and being in sync at every spot on the floor.
“I think definitely just switching tempo helped a lot,” Bailey said. “Then just fixing the small mistakes and really just playing together as a team and pulling through and knowing that we have what it takes, so why stop playing now.”
Blocks were a key part of that momentum shift as well, as the team had 29 total kills in the match.
Juniors Lexi Owens and Adylan Ayer combined for 17 of those blocks, halting a plethora of points on the front line.
“Really we just talk a lot about pressing over the block, lining up and taking that away” Bailey said. “I feel like Lexi Owens specifically did an awesome job with pressing over and if we look at the stats Lexi led us in blocks with nine blocks, so we’re very impressed with that.”
Meanwhile junior Josie Newcom had another impressive game with 21 kills, including the game-winning kills in all of the last three sets.
Bailey said it was Newcom’s court awareness and placement that allowed her to have a solid game after a slow start.
“We started off going line because we saw that they were giving us that,” Bailey said. “Then they adjusted so we had to switch it up some. Then Josie just ended up yet again executing everything that we practice and she knows to do.”
Bouncing back from a tough loss, Daviess County now sits at 6-2 on the season and will hit the road to take on Greenwood at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday. Meanwhile Owensboro Catholic will look to break its two-game losing streak when they hit the road to take on Hancock County at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday.
