FREMONT – The Lady Giants played perhaps their best match, from start to finish, Thursday night. So the fact Ross came out on the short end, in a 3-1 defeat underscored the message coach Kari Shull has been telling her team.
When matches are razor thin, so too are the factors that determine its outcome.
“Volleyball is a game of inches and centimeters,” Shull said. “We sometimes didn’t tip when we should have to get that easy point, or didn’t stick it, and that’s what I talked about with the girls at the end of the game last night,” Shull said. “This is a time when the inches and centimeters came to a head because Findlay was able to execute on them and we were not.”
The Lady Giants lost by a score of 24-26, 25-10, 21-25, 21-25 in an evenly-matched contest with TRAC rival Findlay. Despite the loss, Shull saw more of what her team is capable of Thursday than in any other match this season.
“We didn’t beat ourselves, by any means,” she said. “Findlay got the win because they got the win. I think at the end of the day, when I look at the four sets, I think it’s the longest string of playing where they were able to maintain the higher level of where they play at. From a passing, setting, hitting (standpoint), sometimes I get a set, sometimes I get two sets. I think they had a solid, three, three-and-a-half sets.”
The deciding point of the match came midway through the fourth set, Ross held a lead then Findlay ripped off an 11-point run, taking control of the set. The Lady Giants clawed to stay close but couldn’t extend the match to a fifth set.
“There was just a little bit of a handful of everything in those 10 points, where we just couldn’t get out of it,” Shull said.
The Lady Giants are now 5-8 overall, 2-2 in the TRAC and will return to action Saturday when they travel to Northview at 12:30.