The offensive attack doesn’t look much different for Western Albemarle with standouts Laura Bergin and Maggie Kooken back, but finding the right chemistry with a new setter in Lauren Reifsteck and libero Marina Clark remains the early challenge. In their season opener against R.E. Lee, the Warriors looked as comfortable and fluid as ever as they dispatched the Leemen in straight sets, 3-0, 25-11, 25-20, 25-18 to get off on the right foot.
“We were trying to develop that rhythm between our setters and hitters tonight,” said Warriors coach Ron Pack, a long time assistant now in his first year as head coach. “Our seniors led the way as to be expected but we were able to get a lot of our younger players in and that’s going to be key. They need match experience and you never know when you’ll need them down the road.”
Western’s first game was its strongest as it rolled out to a 9-1 lead to force Lee’s first timeout and stretched that lead further to 17-4. With Bergin, Kooken, Devon Via and Maggie Spindel offering a lot of variety on the attack, there was little Lee could do to avoid falling into a 1-0 hole.
“Our serving was pretty good even though we had a few errors, but they had trouble handling it,” Spindel said. “Our blocking was on point. We usually have a some communication errors between (the defense, passing) and blockers but for some reason that all disappeared tonight so that was really nice.”
But the visiting team responded in the second set with its best defensive play of the night. The Leeman were up 13-8 with Western rotating through its lineup. Western answered though with nine of the next 12 points to claim a 17-16 lead before finishing out with a comfortable 2-0 margin.
In the third set things were again close early with Western leading 9-8. However another run, this time 7-2 put the Warriors out in front with a lot of bench players participating and hanging on to close the match up with a 25-18 win.
Spindel had an all-around night with eight kills, five blocks and a five aces. Kooken had seven kills, six digs and three blocks. Reifsteck finished with 19 assists while Abi Wagner had five. Clark led the team with 19 digs.
“Even though we have so many returning players it does feel like a completely different team but tonight we showed that we’re still strong,” Spindel said.
Western (1-0) travels to Wilson Memorial on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
