With the regular season winding down and with the Dogwood District Tournament a little more than one week away, Nelson County’s volleyball team handled its business by thumping Gretna on Thursday night, 3-0, 25-17, 25-4, 25-10.
“We talked about it before the match, we want to keep up the high level play and the intensity level to finish out (the regular season),” said Governors coach Vicki Crawford. “We were a little bit flat in the beginning of the match, but I thought we did a much better job in game two, doing the things we’re supposed to do.”
Nelson struggled slightly in game one with some miscommunication and unforced errors, but still did not have much trouble staying out in front of the Hawks.
“The thing was that once we hit the ball properly, Gretna was able to return it,” Crawford said. “So that’s what we had to do.”
All was fixed in game two as the Governors overwhelmed Gretna with its serve and, when necessary, its hitting trio of Ashley Wells, Madison Carter and Erika Toliver. With an almost instantaneous double-digit lead, Nelson cruised through without any resistance. Wells’ jump serve was more than any of the Hawk defenders could handle, and once she got rolling, so too did her teammates.
“I’ve been working a lot on my jump serve,” said Wells. “It’s been nice that in our last two matches I’ve only missed two serves because I had been missing four and five. I’m getting a lot more confident there and I think that spreads through out the team. When you see one player getting more confident, all of the sudden everyone gets that way.”
In game three the Hawks were able to keep within five points of the lead early on, but after a timeout was called at 13-8 by Gretna, the Governors went on a tear like the previous game, winning 12 of the next 14 points to wrap up a quick night of work.
Wells finished the game as the top finisher on offense, amassing 17 kills. The junior also chipped in seven digs. Carter had four kills to go with a game high six blocks. Brittany Crawford led the Nelson defense with 11 digs. Setter Keona Loving kept busy with 24 assists.
The Governors are currently tied with William Campbell atop the Dogwood with the Generals taking the first match of the year in September in five games but the Governors answering back with a 3-1 win last week. The road team won both matches.
Nelson (15-1, 8-1) plays host to Altavista on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m before closing out the regular season with Dan River at home on Thursday at the same time.
