Staff
The Muskies overcame a slow start to grab a commanding lead in their NorWOSSA showdown last Thursday afternoon against the host Dryden Eagles.
Then everything fell apart.
Trailing 19-9 in the first set, the Muskies stormed back to win it 26-24.
The black-and-gold then carried that momentum into the second set, cruising to a 25-19 win to lead the best-of-five showdown 2-0.
Then, in the words of head coach Duane Roen, they stopped playing.
The Eagles swept the next three sets by scores of 25-16, 25-15, and 15-13 to steal the victory.
“Every aspect of the game fell apart,” Roen said Friday via e-mail.
“The girls fought an external battle of unforced errors that quickly became an internal mental battle that [they] could not rebound from.
“Dryden was solid at serving aggressively and ball placement, which kept us on the run,” he noted.
“It was frustrating and disappointing when [we] did not execute when opportunities were there.”
The senior squad also is battling through injuries that limited the lineup to just seven players at times on Thursday.
“Some of our more inexperienced players are now thrown into the match and are struggling to perform consistently when needed,” Roen noted.
“We need all of our players to step up and engage their opponents aggressively if we expect to improve our game play at this level,” he stressed.
With the loss, the seniors dropped to 2-2 in NorWOSSA play.
The junior squad, meanwhile, suffered its first loss of the regular season Thursday in Dryden.
It was a see-saw battle as the host Eagles took the first set 26-24 before the Muskies bounced back with a 25-11 romp in the second one.
Then after Dryden won the third set 25-20, Fort High evened the match with a 25-19 win in the fourth set.
But in the fifth-and-deciding set, the Eagles prevailed 15-10 to earn the win.
Head coach Bob Kowal said inconsistency throughout the team cost the Muskies, which left them at 3-1 on the NorWOSSA season.
“It was a disappointing way to finish before the Christmas break,” he lamented Friday via e-mail.
“We had an excellent result in the Dryden tournament and we were hoping to build on that moving forward,” Kowal noted.
“Unfortunately, the girls did not execute and the end result was a listless performance against their main rivals.”
On a brighter note, Kowal said Simone Payne continues to be a difference-maker with her strong serving and leads the team in this offensive category.
He added Grade 10s Grace Petsnick and Jamie Spencer statistically had a good match, as well, leading the teams in kills and blocks.
But it was the inconsistency throughout the team that plagued the squad, he reiterated.
“It’s a tough thing to watch, as a coach, when you see kids who are totally capable of dominating the game [but] when a couple things don’t go their way, they become passive and make soft plays rather than going out and being aggressive,” Kowal noted.
Both teams will take a short break before resuming practice during the Christmas break.
They’ll resume their season with a league game when they return to school, then will attend a tournament in Kenora on Jan. 12-13.
In boys’ basketball action last Thursday, the junior boys improved to 3-1 in NorWOSSA play with a 61-42 win over the host Eagles.
But the seniors were dumped 82-64 to fall to 2-2 on the season.
