For the second straight week, The Dunsmuir Tigers played a Siskiyou County team, the Weed Cougars, in Weed. Dunsmuir came out strong but faltered at the end to lose the match in five games: 25-14, 25-22, 17-25,18-25 and 16-18. The Tigers came back the next day to lose to Redding Adventist at home in five games: 21-25, 25-13, 21-25, 28-26 and 14-16
The highlight for the Weed game was their serving. The Tigers accumulated 19 aces in the five games. Jamie Kirch led the team with eight and Heather Coe had five. Rose Spagnolo, Annie Van Ert and Taylor Fesler had three, one and three respectively.
“When we get the ball to our servers, good things happen for us,” head coach Lisa Kirch said.
The Cougars serving kept them in game two and was one of the reasons they were able to take the match. Amanda Green led the team with six aces. Mindi Curran and Kaytlin McIntyre had four aces each.
The first game was a dominating performance by Dunsmuir. According to Kirch, the team communicated well and their serving was dead on. Jamie Kirch finished the game with two of her eight aces.
Game two was close as the team were matching each other point for point. Neither team could get more than a few points advantage. Spagnolo end this game with all three of her aces.
After the second game, Kirch changed a few things up and made more substitutions to get some of her other players time on the court.
The Cougars came roaring back taking a 8-3 lead thanks to two aces by Curran. Dunsmuir couldn’t get any closer than five points. Weed closed the door with a Sierra Skeen kill.
Amanda Greene started the game with two quick aces tying up the game. Weed started to take advantage of miscommunication and serves into the net by the Tigers. They took a commanding 19-12 lead and never looked back.
The miscommunication comes partially from the scheme Kirch implements into the offense. Her setters are to hit the ball second “no matter what unless they call for help.” According to Kirch, they aren’t doing this soon enough, leaving their teammates in limbo waiting to see if they hit the ball. This has cost crucial points in both this game and the loss against Mount Shasta.
Game five started out strong for the Tigers, looking like the team who played games one and two. Sadie Machammer had a kill and Jamie Kirch had two aces and Coe had one. The game went back and forth after that, with the largest lead going to Dunsmuir with a 12-10 score.
With the game tied 15-15, when Coe fell hard to the floor while going for the dig and hurt her leg. The Tiger’s hit the net on the next serve and Weed took advantage of it. Amanda Greene served up two aces to give the win to the Cougars.
“I tell the girls all the time that we can’t have ball handling errors on a free ball, that’s not acceptable at this level of play,”
Kirch said after the game. Jennifer Hope add a block and four kills. Coe, Machamer and Van Ert each had three kills. McIntyre and Jamie Kirch had two.
Hartje had three kills. Amanda Greene and Melaina Vogel each had a block for Weed.
Wednesday’s game in Dunsmuir was almost a mirror image of the Weed game. This is the first full game that the team played without team leader, Heather Coe. As a consistent server and strong outside hitter, she was tremendously missed.
According to Kirch, Redding Adventist played a different type of game then the Tigers have seen before, dumping it over and serving the ball well. Kirch adjusted by softening off the defense to prepare for the harder serves. This caused problems as Dunsmuir couldn’t get to the ball causing them to fall behind big early.
Dunsmuir offense wasn’t affected by the adjustments, as their serving was still strong. Van Ert led the team with five aces. Jamie Kirch had three aces. Jennifer Hope led the team in kills with seven followed by Van Ert with six and Machamer with three.
In game two, it looked liked they were going to fall behind 2-0 early. Jamie Kirch served for six points in a row and had three aces in the match. In game four, they were down 8-16. Annie Van Ert came in to serve four aces and had six points. Games three and four were similar to games one and two.
Game five was close thanks to Machamer and Van Ert, who each serve three straight points. Consistency and communication once again was their downfall as missed serves and dropped balls handed the game to Redding Adventist.
“We have a lot of tough games in preseason,” said Kirch after the game. “We haven’t managed to get three good games under our belt yet, but I have confidence that this group of ladies can do that.”
This drops Dunsmuir to 0-3 on the year. This week, the Lady Tigers played Weed again on Tuesday and Providence Christian on Thursday.
Dunsmuir, Calif. —
