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Volleyball Fights Valiantly in Opening Night Loss to Sheehan

While opening night can come with many uncertainties and question marks for any squad, one thing is true about the rest of the Guilford volleyball team's season: The Indians will fight until the very end for each point against some of the stiffest competition in the SCC.

The Indians opened up the campaign at home on Sept. 9 and took a 3-0 defeat from Sheehan, a SCC Tournament squad from 2013. The sweep on paper may have appeared rough for Guilford, yet the Indians made the Titans work for their win-especially during the first and third sets in close 26-24 and 25-23 defeats, respectively, including a rally by the home squad following Sheehan taking a late first-set 22-19 edge after ringing off seven consecutive points.

"We had sets that were awesome tonight in the first and third. The scores just didn't work out in our favor," said Head Coach Laura Meyer. "But they way that they scrapped and played really showed me that they were right there and things could've gone either way."

Junior Heather Wirth led Guilford in kills with eight, plus junior siblings Sam and Meredith Shank each added in 23 digs. Cia Mirrione tacked on five kills, while Sammy Carlson was the top producer in the assists' department with eight dishes.

"Our girls want it; their energy is good, their attitude is great and really positive," said Meyer. "They know that they want it and once they get that first win under their belts, they will do a lot of great things. By the way they play and their attitude, you can see they want it and it'll come."

Following a back-and-forth opening to the first set, Guilford (0-2) gained its first edge of the night at 8-7 before both squads continued to exchange tallies. The Indians went ahead, 12-10, but Sheehan (1-0) took a 14-12 command with four in a row prior to Guilford matching that feat itself to force the Titans into a timeout.

Coming out of the break and the Indians later ahead by four, Sheehan completed a 7-0 run and then eventually took a 23-20 lead, though Guilford refused to surrender the set without a battle by scratching out three straight points preceding the Titans taking three of the next four points to clinch.

It appeared in the early going of the second that the Indians were primed to even up the evening with a quick 3-0 edge, but Sheehan rattled off 13 straight scores to put Guilford into a big 13-3 hole. From there, the Titans took 12 of the set's final 19 tallies to gain the 25-10 victory.

"The second game showed our age a little bit," said Meyer, whose Indians graduated seven seniors from last year's team. "We were confused and hesitant, so we have to build off of how we did in the first and third sets and know that we can play with these teams even if we don't have the experience."

Down 3-0 early for the third, Guilford took half a dozen in a row to move ahead, 6-3. Sheehan did manufacture a three and four-point spurt midway through, yet the Indians maintained a 19-17 edge. Even at 20, the matchup saw both sides alternate the next six points prior to the Titans nailing down two straight to close out the night.

"We need to make it harder for teams. We kind of free-balled it over the net tonight, which made it easy for Sheehan to set up hits," said Meyer, whose team lost to Mercy by the same final on Sept. 12. "We have to keep digging and keep working on making it harder for the other team. We also saw a couple of tough servers that threw us off balance, so we have to expect to see good servers every game."

In the Mercy matchup, the Indians lost 14-25 and 17-25 before a close 22-25 decision in the final set. Wirth had five kills and three blocks; Sam Shank had 15 digs; plus Meredith Shank had four kills and seven digs; and Carlson had 10 assists and seven digs.

"Mercy is continuously one of the strongest teams in the SCC. But each game, we hung with them, and in the first and second game, we had a burst of several points in a row as a comeback," said Meyer. "But Mercy had some big hitters. The third game was the best game played this season so far. Our young girls went back and forth with the big Mercy hitters. Mercy thought they would be able to win the third game easily, and the girls made it hard for them. Energy was up, and the girls really looked like a well-oiled machine knowing where each other person was, digging up big hits, and keeping volleys going."