By Jenny Chen staff writer
The Galileo girl’s JV volleyball team lost a critical match against Washington High School on October 18. Although the team got off to a great start, winning the first set 25-19, they were not able to finish the game, eventually losing in 3 sets (12-25, and 6-15).
With the loss, the team dropped to 3 wins and 4 losses, and put an end to the Lions playoff hopes, as they needed to beat the Eagles in order to have a chance to earn the last playoff spot.
The Lions came out strong in the 1st set, playing clean volleyball, with very few mistakes. The team had hardly any missed serves, and the passing was crisp which led to a number of Washington mistakes, which resulted in points.
Freshman libero, Helen H. said, “In the first set, it was just getting in the rhythm of the game and not focusing on winning, but just focusing on playing like we should.”
In the 2nd & 3rd set, the match completely flipped. The Eagles seemed to shake off their nerves and went on the attack. The Eagles started hitting, with the Lions unable to respond. Then when the Lions had opportunities to score points, the Eagles seemed to pick up all of the Lions hits.
Coach Mark was discouraged by the loss because he thought the team played uncharacteristically. He said, “[We made] lots of mistakes that we don’t normally make but we made those in the second and third set, and never found the rhythm to play well. It was from lack of experience.”
Helen said,“We started panicking which caused us to fall behind.” Sophomore outside hitter, Athena D. added, “In the first set we were moving more and getting the ball over. In the second set, serve receive mistakes happened a lot and along with more general mistakes of getting the ball over.”
