By Bill Bray
OTTAWA HILLS – The Arrows of Ottawa Hills used experience and team speed to defeat an under-manned Little Giant crew 3-0.
After a first set score of 25-21 in favor of the Arrows. The queens of Indian Road pushed on the gas pedal even harder in the second set and totally dominated 25-5.
The Madam Little Giants (7-2), under-manned because of covid, came back in the third set and made things interesting. But in the end the Arrows won the set 25-19 to end the match in three sets.
A positive Lindy Cahill talked about the learning experience taken from the defeat. “The tempo of this match got to us a little bit tonight,” Cahill began. “I told the kids that there were a lot of positives that happened tonight. And we are going to focus on those positive things.” The Little Giants have been forced to play four matches in four days because of the Covid infection. The team was forced to sit out all last week as all the girls were asked to quarantine. Consequently, matches scheduled for last week must be made up this week. All this is a negative thing for a positive coach and team to have to face. “We don’t have time to go back to Ross and practice anything that happened tonight because we play again tomorrow,” Cahill said. “But we are going to think about things that we can do better, and we are going to think about things that we did really well tonight, because there was both.”
It was a match that pitted the Giants against a state power volleyball team. “It was definitely a night for learning,” Cahill said. “It was a night to increase mental toughness. We played three freshmen big minutes and three sophomore’s big minutes. I can’t fault them for following the process and learning.” St Ursula, travelling around the state to play volleyball, sits at 6-7 on the season. “We knew their ball control was going to be really good, and we didn’t do enough to take them out of their system. But part of it is us just getting our legs back under us after nine days of being idle,” Cahill mentioned.
“The night was tough on the Giants playing without one of their top hitters Brooklyn Smith. “There is so much negative in our community,” Cahill said. “So tonight, before the JVs even played, we talked about how the Little Giant volleyball program has been a real change agent in the community. People are coming up to me and the other coach Cahill and they are talking about Ross Volleyball. That has never happened in a positive light. So, we can dwell on all the negative stuff happening in our community or we can continue to be a positive change agent. I like the Sunday school song ‘This little light of mine’. We have a lot of stars on this team, and we are going to be positive and shine however we can.”