PEMBERVILLE — For the second time inside of a week, Eastwood volleyball avenged a Northern Buckeye Conference volleyball loss, this time by defeating visiting Maumee in three sets, 25-11, 25-20, 25-19, on Thursday.
One week earlier, Eastwood handed Lake its only league loss in four sets, avenging a loss to the Flyers from September 3.
“I think that means a lot to us,” said Eastwood 6-foot sophomore Mack Miller, who led the Eagles with 13 kills and eight digs.
“We’ve been working really hard in practice getting the reps, so I think it’s just been helping us to do better and work with each other,” continued Miller.
The win over Maumee Thursday avenges a loss to the Panthers on September 10, and the wins keep Eastwood (14-5 overall, 10-2 NBC) one game behind Lake (14-6, 11-1) in the league standings.
The Eagles and Flyers both have two league games remaining next week — the final week of the regular season, and Eastwood will have to win both and hope the Flyers stumble to earn a title share.
Eastwood coach Sarah Frank said she saw a different team from their first meeting with Maumee.
“I think this time we were just ready to show them what we are really made of,” Frank said. “That first match earlier this season, they are a super competitive team, and we did not execute, we did not play our best, we had a rough night, and they capitalized on it, so we came back ready.”
Miller added, “I think this time we were a lot more disciplined, and we just have a lot more confidence than when we started the season. Also, our passing has really cleaned up lately and I think that really added to how we swept them this evening.”
Eastwood was on top of their game from the get-go Thursday, winning the first set easily, 25-11.
Eastwood 5-foot-10 junior Ivy Schrader had two kills, 6-3 Central Michigan University commit Lilly Mullholland had a kill, and Mullholland teamed with 5-11 senior Addie Hartman on block assists during a 6-0 run that put the Eagles up 19-9. Mullholland scored on a block to finish the set.
Eastwood never trailed in the second set, going on a 5-0 run behind three aces and a kill by Schrader and a block by Mullholland to take a 17-8 lead, but the Panthers battled back to within four points at one point. It was not enough as Mullholland’s kill finished off the set.
The third set saw Maumee take an early 7-4 lead on block assists by senior Lydia Christensen and Autumn Draper, but Eastwood rallied to take a 13-12 lead on an ace by Hartman.
After Maumee sophomore Brooke Kwiatkowski tied the game on a kill, Eastwood went on an 8-0 run behind two Schrader aces, two kills by Miller, and a kill and block from Mullholland.
Eastwood finished off the final two match points on kills by 6-0 junior Braily Moenter and 5-11 senior Mylie Frantz.
For the Eagles, Mullholland had 10 kills and four blocks, Moenter had three blocks, Frantz had four kills, and senior setter Kyrie Henline had 35 assists and nine digs.
Frank believes her team is moving in the right direction at the right time.
“I think we have not reached our peak yet,” Frank said. “I think we are still moving up, moving forward and pulling it all together. I’m excited to see what they can do in the tournament.”
Maumee, which suffered its third straight loss, falls to 8-12 and 6-6. Part of the reason for the Panthers’ poor start was an injury suffered by one of their starters just before the match was scheduled to start.
“We weren’t ready to be play, to be honest,” Maumee coach Lindsay Vannett said. “We had one of our girls go down in warmups — she had to get an X-ray, so hopefully that comes back negative. She was our starting right side (hitter) so we had to make an adjustment to our roster. That kind of took a minute to get used to.”
Vannett says her team has to readjust to the more recent adversity they are facing.
“We’re trying to find ourselves again,” Vannett said. “We’ve had a little bit of a lull, little bit of a slump, you could call it.
“We’ve had some games not go our way, but it kind of makes us question some things. We just need to find ourselves. We have a really great team and if we can put it together, we’ll be unstoppable, but they have to believe that.”
