The Muckers played two Division 4 northern teams over the weekend traveling to Carlin to play the Railroaders on Friday and to Eureka on Saturday against the Vandals.
The team was in good form beating Carlin, 3-0 and Eureka, 3-2.
The Muckers had to step it up in the last match to beat the Vandals in the last set, 15-11. Coach Harvey Gonzalez knew his team was going to be up against a quality team because they met in Ely earlier in the year.
“Eureka is a very good team. They are well coached, well disciplined and a good group of girls. It was fun to play them. If you recall, they beat us pretty bad in Ely. I think we will see Eureka again in the playoffs,” he said.
During the first two matches against Eureka the Lady Muckers breezed by the Railroaders, but lost some steam in sets three and four.
“We weren’t playing too well. The girls picked it up and we won the first two, but then lost the next two and it came down to the tie breaker. In the last match, I told the girls to relax. Don’t play their style of ball, just play yours and things will come out OK,” he said.
During the last match the Muckers were on fire.
“It’s good to see a group of teenage girls want something bad enough and then go out and take it,” the coach said.
Middle blocker senior Ashley Grey continued to hit hard and is beginning to look a bit like Deanna Vanpoucke. Against Carlin, Grey had 9 kills and against Eureka she had 13. The coach didn’t want to compare Grey to Vanpoucke saying they were two different players with two different jobs.
“Grey is starting to come around. I told her that her main job is middle blocker. She needs to coordinate our blocking efforts. She blocks solo in the middle and double blocks on the side. She is filling the shoes of Deanna but her main goal is to block,” Gonzalez said.
The Muckers play Sandy Valley this Friday for their first league game at 3 p.m.
Carlin went down, 25-9, 25-16, 25-15 and Eureka went down, 25-23, 25-19, 15-25, 24-26, 15-11.