City High Still Seeking Breakthrough Following Loss to 4A No. 11 Marion
Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports
IOWA CITY – The wall the City High volleyball team keeps pounding on is weakening.
City High will have to wait a little bit longer to break through.
The Little Hawks saw their losing streak stretch to three on Thursday with a 25-22, 25-21, 25-18 loss to Class 4A No. 11 Marion (8-5) in a non-conference match at City High.
“Tonight, was a chance to break through that wall,” City High coach Craig Pitcher said. “Right now, that wall is still pretty heavy and that’s where we are at but I know it’s close to breaking and the girls know that we just have to keep working.”
City High (5-8) has lost nine consecutive sets during its string of three consecutive losses to ranked teams.
In a season full of ups and downs that is the bad for the Little Hawks.
The good is that City High isn’t far from a breakthrough.
City High has scored 20 points in all but three of those sets including each of the first two on Thursday in the loss to Marion.
“We are just waiting to break through and the breakthrough still hasn’t happened,” Pitcher said. “It will come one way or another and it needs to come against an opponent that we aren’t supposed to beat on paper.”
Following Mississippi Valley Conference losses to 5A eighth-ranked West High and 4A No. 2 Dubuque Wahlert the Little Hawks had another chance for that breakthrough win over Thursday.
Ellie Evans and Kelsey Law each had 11 kills as City High finished with a 40 to 35 advantage in kills.
It wasn’t enough as Marion got 10 kills from Holly Faley and seven from Andrea Landuyt to snap its own losing streak.
“It’s frustrating,” Evans said. “We want to win these games and we know we aren’t very far away. We just have to keep pushing
City High led 21-20 in the opening set but Marion scored five of the final six points to win the opener 25-22 and seize the momentum.
“We talked about that being a good game, we all knew we played well it’s just the last few points we need to edge out a little bit,” Evans said. “We weren’t able to finish out those sets.”
City High scored the first four points of the second set and trailed 22-21 late but again Marion used a late run, this time a 3-0 spurt, to close out the win.
A couple of City High errors and a Faley kill gave Marion a 25-21 win in the second and a two sets to none lead.
“We are playing with every team we are playing the whole, the scores are right there with them,” Pitcher said. “We’ve been serving pretty solid the last couple of weeks and we’ve taken a lot of teams out of what they want to do but it’s those pockets of panic.
City High trailed 5-0 and 15-9 in the third set but battled back.
The Little Hawks used a pair of 3-0 runs to get as close as 21-18 on consecutive kills by Cecilia Aldrich-Ingram and Evans.
“I think those pockets of points that we get are a lot longer than they used to be,” Evans said. “I think we are getting there.”
One final late Marion run completed the sweep as the Indians scored the final four points on kills from setter Caitlyn Smith, Faley and Randi Wright.
“They are trying but there are a lot of things happening at the end of sets that are repeats,” Pitcher said. “We aren’t far away but you just don’t what them to get used to that feeling.”
(Kills-aces-blocks)
Marion
Kayba Laube 4-0-0, Kenzie Redmond 1-0-0, Caitlyn Smith 2-3-2, Miranda Beik 2-0-0, Michaela Oberbroeckling 0-3-0, Randi Wright 6-0-2, Delaney Rice 3-0-1, Andrea Landuyt 7-1-1, Holly Faley 10-0-1, Team 35-7-7.
Assists – Caitlyn Smith 19.
City High
Eryn Dailey 1-0-0, Mackenzie Murphy 5-2-0, Ellie Evans 11-2-0, Kelsey Law 11-2-0, Mia Loughran 6-1-0, Cecilia Aldrich-Ingram 6-0-0, Team 40-8-0.
Assists – Lindsey Bolton 30, Mackenzie Murphy 1.
