Lady Miners top Mullan in first meeting
Photos by Chanse Watson/ (From right) Mullan junior Lindsey Foster tips the ball over the net while Wallace senior Kayla Slater attempts to block it. Maggie Howard and Halei Ungerbuehler stand ready.
Slater and Foster battle once again at the top of the net.
(From left) Wallace seniors Kayla Bayer and Jen Hayman watch as junior Hannah Garitone sets the ball.
Mullan freshman Emily Dykes hits the ball while juniors Lindsey Foster and Sydnie Cote support.
MULLAN PAVILION — The Mullan Lady Tigers certainly gave Wa-Hi a scare early on, but in a game of endurance- a short bench can be a killer.
Wallace High School Volleyball took the win Tuesday night over their east Silver Valley rivals, three matches to one.
Make no mistake though, this was a close one until the end.
Mullan played incredibly well in the first match, initially putting the Miners on the defensive and jumping out to some early leads.
Bring only seven players to the court, Mullan coach Dawn McKinnon stressed that all of her players had to stand out in this one in order to compete.
“With our numbers as low as they are...it takes all of them out there to do what we are doing.”
The Tigers breached the 20 point mark first, but due to some superb serving, the Lady Miners would make a substantial come back and take the match 25-23.
Anali Spooner, Wallace’s Volleyball coach, admits that her team works especially hard on serving to sometimes get them out of tough spots like these ones.
“We literally, every practice, serve for probably a half an hour straight,” she explained, “its not just playing around serving, we are consistently serving as best as we can for reasons like that.”
Wallace Volleyball had an impressive 22 aces on the night that were fairly spread out through the team.
Irked from getting so close and having the win stripped away, Mullan stepped up in the second match to take it 25-17.
The third match would be similar to the first in that both sides traded the lead.
This one in particular had several volleys that lasted for quite a while.
As the match and the night wore on, Wallace’s longer bench was starting to take its toll on the small Mullan squad.
The Lady Miners took the third match 25-20 and then powered through the forth for a commanding 25-9 win to cap off the game.
Spooner said that, after some initial missteps, liked the play of junior Catie Sheppard and junior Maggie Howard.
Sheppard ended the night with 10 digs and Howard had one kill.
As usual with Wallace though, the Miners offense was lead by senior Destiny Angle- racking up an impressive five hits, four aces, and ten digs.
Right behind Angle in team contributions was Makayla Carlson with two hits, five aces, and eight assists.
After the game, McKinnon stressed that if her team could have capitalized early on, the outcome may have changed.
“We ran out of gas at the end, but if we got them that first game it might have been a different story.”
Mullan (0-2) will have a chance to even the score on Sept. 28 at 6 p.m. when they take on the Lady Miners (1-2) again in Wallace.