By TIM TAYLORValley Sports Report
SAYRE — Athens and Sayre renewed their crosstown rivalry Tuesday evening with a competitive and hard-fought match on the Redskins court here.
The Wildcats swept the NTL match, 3-0, but it was a battle all the way. The scores were 25-19, 25-20 and 25-19.
“Sayre is no joke and they're not the Sayre of a couple years ago where it was like, send the ball over and didn't know what was coming back,” said Athens coach Heather Darrow.
Despite the loss, Sayre coach Colby Sangrey was pleased with his team’s effort.
“That's the nice thing about this group. They don't give up,” he said. “They showed us that all last year and this year, they're showing us that they don't give up.
“We were being a lot smarter, just not giving away points. It's just little things here and there that we’ve got to work on.”
Athens worked a 17-11 lead in the first set and looked primed to pull away. Sayre had other plans and fought back to make it 23-19 down the stretch before the Wildcats finally closed it out.
In the second set, the teams were tied, 3-3, 6-6, 7-7 and 9-9.
The Redskins, who trailed, 6-3, early in the match rallied ahead, 14-10, but the Wildcats clawed their way back to tie things up at 14.
Leading, 17-16, Athens pushed its advantage to 21-16 before Sayre closed the gap to 22-19, but the home team could get no closer.
The third set saw the Redskins get out in front early, but Athens rallied to knot the score at 6-6.
The teams traded points, then the Wildcats scored three straight points to make it 10-7. Sayre would trim the margin to 10-9, but Athens scored four of the next six points to make it 14-11.
The Redskins would cut their deficit to 15-14, but a series of Sayre miscues and some solid Athens hitting aided the Wildcats as they stretched their lead to 23-16.
Sayre wasn’t about to pack it in, but wasn’t able to get within six down the stretch..
“They are very competitive and we're just, this energy thing, we've got to figure out a little bit more,” said Darrow. “However, I am a very energetic person myself so I don't know if anyone can ever get on my level, but I know that we need more, because we'd let up again. We'd have the lead a little bit, and then we'd just let them back in.
“I was standing here getting sweaty because I was like, OK guys let's turn it on. You can look at it many ways. It's a hard environment to play in here. It's just a little bit different.
“I'm glad that they found a way to figure it out, so I'm happy that way. I need to just give credit to the girls that they figured out a way without letting up, even though we let them have a lot of points at the end.”
“It's still early for us, but tonight was really positive, a lot different than what we've had so far,” Sangrey said.
For the Redskins, Yhale Doon had two kills, one block, 16 assists and two aces; Emily Strickland contributed one dig, two kills and two aces; Mylee Medina picked up four digs; Alex Schack chipped in with nine digs, five kills, one assist and two aces; Reghan McGaughey recorded six digs, eight kills, one block and one ace; Azalea McClenny accounted for two kills, four blocks and two aces; Ember Jones added two blocks and Grace Russo tacked on 13 digs and one assist.
Both teams return to action on Thursday with Athens (4-1) at Wellsboro (3-1) and Sayre (2-3) heading to Williamson (2-1).
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IN PHOTO 1: Athens’ Lainey Vosburgh. IN TOP PHOTO: Athens’ Kendall Galasso (L) and Sayre’s Azalea McClenny. … PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
