Volleyball: Beatty girls on a five-game roll

The Beatty girls volleyball team has won the last three league games they have played, beating Indian Springs 3-2 on Sept. 28, Sandy Valley 3-0 on Oct. 6 and Word of Life 3-1 on Oct. 10.

Beatty (6-6 overall, 4-1 Class 1A Southern) has won five games in a row since their loss to league leader Tonopah on Sept. 15.

At the moment, the Hornets are in third place in the league behind Pahranagat Valley (12-11, 5-0) and Liberty Baptist (10-12, 4-0).

“The girls have shown a lot of grit the past three games,” Steve Sullivan, head Beatty volleyball coach said. “Against Indian Springs we dropped the first two sets, but were able to come back and take the next three.”

He said the Indian Springs (2-5, 1-3) game on the road was tough because they had a solid defense.

“Their girls moved very well with each other on the court,” the coach said. “This gave us a lot of frustration on offense, which carried over to our defense.”

Against Sandy Valley at home

Although Beatty beat Sandy Valley (1-7, 0-5) in three sets, Sullivan said it was close.

“The sets were closer than I had hoped,” he said. “However, Sandy Valley was another solid team that held their own. In set two we were down 24-22 with sophomore Adriana Gil up to serve. She embraced the moment and served four straight points for a win. Then in the third set we found ourselves down but junior Sandra Garcia stepped and served a pretty good run that allowed us to take the lead.”

Word of Life at home

Sullivan said on Tuesday against Word of Life there were a lot of great volleys and great hustle from both teams.

“There were a few moments where I thought there was no way our girl or their girl could save that ball but they did,” Sullivan said. “We struggled with our hitting against them because they were tough on the net, and our hitters tried hitting over their blocks.”

Sullivan told his girls they needed to step up and that they needed to start hitting through them, which he said they did.

“We also had a few big plays by Angie Altman at the net that adjusted the tone of the match,” the coach said. “Our focus moving forward is holding ourselves to a higher standard and having a mentality of unacceptable. The girls have set some pretty challenging goals in hopes to motivate them individually and the whole team, as a result.”

Beatty will be celebrating homecoming this week against Round Mountain and the volleyball game will be at 5:30 p.m. today. The football game against Round Mountain will start at 7 p.m. today.

Contact sports editor Vern Hee at vhee@pvtimes.com