Greenwood’s volleyball team admittedly came into Monday’s match at Greenwood Christian expecting to cruise to an easy victory.
The Cougars served notice early on that it wouldn’t be easy, but the Woodmen were able to respond to the first-set wakeup call and exit with a 23-25, 25-16, 25-14, 25-8 road win.
“I think they realized that the other team wasn’t going to just sit down and let them win,” Greenwood coach Natalie Kitchin said. “They thought that we could come in and destroy them, and GCA showed they would put up a good fight.”
Junior Mya Ayro got stronger as the match progressed and finished with 19 kills and seven service aces for the Woodmen (1-1), who also got eight kills and nine aces from senior Jenna Armstrong.
But while those two wound up taking control of the affair over the final three sets, it was the host Cougars who led the first one from start to finish.
GCA (0-1) led throughout but did have to hold off a late Woodmen rally. With the Cougars up 23-18, Greenwood got three kills from Ayro, an Ella Dean tip and a tandem block from Ayro and Abbey Gregory to get within a point at 24-23. Faith Kresge dropped a shot into the rear corner to end it for Greenwood Christian.
There was no such drama in the remaining sets.
Ayro had five kills in the second, including the first and last points, and the serving and hitting of Armstrong helped the Woodmen build a 13-4 cushion that was never seriously threatened.
“It was a lot about bringing up our energy and communication and just getting the next ball,” Ayro said of Greenwood bouncing back after the first set. “We’ve got to talk to each other a lot more, because our serve receive was good, but we need more communication on that.”
The third set was tied at 7-7 when Ayro (two aces and a kill) and Armstrong (two kills) keyed a 7-1 burst that put the Woodmen in control. The Cougars got no closer than five the rest of the way, and Greenwood finished it off on a tip by Armstrong.
GCA showed signs of fight by scoring the first three points of the fourth set on Olivia Shingleton’s serve, but the Woodmen stormed back with an 11-1 surge, most of it coming on the serves of Armstrong and Melia Gorrell. Ayro had four kills during that decisive run and seven in the set, which wrapped up on an ace from sophomore Abby Willham.
“In that first set, we played consistently and let them make the mistakes,” GCA coach Keshia Southern said, “and then we started to make the errors, and it was downhill from there.”
For Greenwood, the win provides some momentum going into another rivalry match tonight at Franklin — one that has typically not gone the Woodmen’s way.
Ayro is hopeful that she and her teammates can change that.
“I think we can step up some things better than we did tonight and bring out more energy and communication,” she said. “It’s going to be hard against Franklin, but I think we can do it.”
