To show how far Gilroy’s girls’ volleyball team has come, the
Mustangs battled it out toe-to-toe with Tri-County Athletic League
heavyweight Salinas in the first game Thursday.
Gilroy – To show how far Gilroy’s girls’ volleyball team has come, the Mustangs battled it out toe-to-toe with Tri-County Athletic League heavyweight Salinas in the first game Thursday.
To show how far GHS has to go, the Mustangs were unable to keep up the frenetic pace for the whole match.
But even Cowboys’ coach Josh Gentle agreed that it wasn’t the same Gilroy team his squad is use to facing after second-place Salinas bested the Mustangs 25-22, 25-17, 25-12 at Bob Hagen Gymnasium.
“That first game they played great defense,” Gentle said. “We heard a lot about their hitting and nothing about their defense. Their defense surprised us. We were focused on taking away their outsides.”
Like good teams, the Cowboys (11-5 overall, 4-1 TCAL) made the necessary adjustments. With six-footers Tori Vaughan and Lydia Johnson dominating at the net, Salinas had 40 kills as a team. Vaughan and Fabiola Castro teamed for 13 digs and the Cowboys rebounded strongly from the tight three-game defeat to San Benito two nights earlier.
“We tried to get our blockers to get a touch (on the ball) to slow it down,” GHS junior Caitlin Chisolm said. “At the beginning, our back row was reading (shots) well and it went back and forth. We tried to stay consistent.”
Kayla Meazell, who had nine kills and 14 digs to lead the Mustangs (9-11 overall, 2-3 TCAL), paced the GHS strong start. The Mustangs hung tough during the second game, trailing 12-11, before the height and power of the Cowboys wore them down.
“They’re the most powerful team in the league,” GHS coach Sue Grogan said. “I told the girls in the first game to not leave anything out there, and they did just that. They did an incredible job digging balls right and left, and our defense did an excellent job.”
Sara Hugo had 12 digs, and Jennifer Smith and Lindsay Meazell teamed for 14 assists for Gilroy.
“They’re going to make a lot of teams respectful of them,” Kentle said of the Mustangs. “It looked like they started to tire when we made our assault on them. They picked up a lot of (shots) that normally fall in for us.”
The Salinas junior varsity prevailed 25-13, 25-13, and its freshmen were 25-12, 25-18 winners.
