After falling last week to King William, the Mathews High School volleyball teams bounced back this week with victories over Essex and Northampton, including a five-set thriller on Monday night that saw the varsity Devils come back from a two-set deficit to upend the visiting Trojans.
King William
Last Thursday, the MHS teams traveled to King William to face the Cavaliers. In the varsity matchup, the Cavaliers won, 3-0, but Mathews put up a hard fight.
The first set ended, 25-21. Mathews struggled to keep up after in the second set and the score was 25-13. The Lady Blue Devils tried coming back for a win to try to reverse sweep, but the last set ended, 25-20, King William.
Emily Ward was a sparkplug for the Lady Blue Devils and served a total of six straight serves. Carter Hayes and Emily Coons had a total of two aces as well. Nora Suthard led the team with eight kills, followed by Hannah Davis, with four. Suthard also had two solo blocks. Davis and Addy Lowe each had a block assist.
The JV girls also fell to the Cavaliers, but forced three sets.
Essex
On Monday at home against Essex, the varsity Lady Devils fell behind quickly, dropping the first two sets by scores of 28-26 and 25-13. Mathews didn’t throw in the towel, instead rallying to win the third set, 25-15, to force a fourth set. Essex came close to winning that set, and the whole match, but Mathews pulled it out at the end in thrilling fashion, 26-24, sending the game into a fifth-and-deciding set.
That set depended on who was determined enough to get the win because the game was now tied. Mathews came back from being down early in the match to winning. The last set ended, 17-15, allowing Mathews to win the match, 3-2.
Davis served five aces out of her 14 serves. Suthard led the team with 17 kills, and Hayes and Abigail Ramsey had nine each.
The JV girls, meanwhile, opened the night by winning a straight-set sweep over Essex, 25-19 and 25-22.
Northampton
On Tuesday night, Mathews hosted Northampton with both the varsity and JV Devils beating the Indians. The JV girls scored a straight-set victory while the varsity team won, 3-1, coming back after the Indians won the first set. Individual stats from Tuesday’s game were not available at press time.
The Mathews homestand continues tonight, Thursday, Sept. 25, with JV and varsity games against the Charles City Panthers. The JV game is scheduled to start at 5:30, with the varsity match following.
