Pope hands Pace Academy first loss, improves to 10-3 with 3-1 win
Despite a couple of bumps in the road, the Pope Greyhounds are off to another great start to the season and notched a key win Pace Academy on Tuesday to improve to 10-3 on the season and extend their current win streak to five matches in a row. And while 3-1 win over Pace has no region implications, being able to hand the seven-time defending champions their first loss of the season was a great way for the hounds to build their momentum.
“We felt like we had nothing to lose. We know how strong Pace is and we know that we’re rebuilding and we’ve been fighting and scratching and clawing for every win that we’ve gotten,” Pope head coach, Erika Miller said following the Greyhounds win on Tuesday.
Miller would continue to share that while understanding the type of opponent they were up against on Tuesday, the Greyhound were also reminded that have had their fair share of battles with strong teams and have managed to come out as victors. “And so with Pace, we just felt like that they bought out the best in us and we gave the energy and effort to come out on top,” Miller added.
Energy and effort which Pope had to rely on heavily throughout sets three and four and they Pace was able to win set two in controlling fashion. “We went down considerably, but we did not give up,” Miller said as she praised her team for their ability to find their rhythm late in set two and battle from being down by as many as 10 points before dropping the set 25-19.
“We just started talking about ball by ball, ball by ball, it’s each its own. You can only score one point any ball so we just tried to put up a fight and we did,” Miller noted. And while the Greyhounds would allow Pace to even the match 1-1, their late set two momentum would carry over into set three which thy would battle through to win 25-19, taking a 2-1set lead.
In et four, Pope would build off of their set three win by taking an early 4-0 lead and despite Pace battle back a couple of times to get within one point of the Greyhounds, they would never relinquish the lead and would go on to pick up the 25-21 set win to win the match 3-1.
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