Bloodhounds’ lack of mistakes dooms Demons

It's hard to score when the opponent doesn't make a mistake.

Washington lost a Southeast Conference volleyball match Tuesday to the visitors from Ft. Madison, 3-0.

'When you play somebody like Ft. Madison, who is consistent with everything, you are not going to come out with the win if you are not consistent,” Washington coach Lexa Mahr said.

Washington lost the first set 25-11. The first nine points for the Demons were offensive points. Kills by Isabel Bailey and Gracie Greiner gave Washington a 2-0 lead. A block by Addison Six and a kill by Hannah Anderson tied it at 4-4.

Mahr called timeout, trailing 11-4.

'I knew they would come out strong and I thought our girls did too at the beginning of the first set,” Mahr said. 'Our girls wanted it.”

Phelan Hostetler got consecutive kills, but that made the score 18-6. Six and Bailey connected on another kill apiece.

The only Ft. Madison error in the set was the 10th point for Washington. By then, the Bloodhounds had 23 points on the board. Six got another block for the 11th point.

The errors, or lack thereof, are something Bloodhounds coach Kent Bailey has been straining to eliminate on with his team.

'We have really worked on that whole mindset here because we have cost ourselves matches,” Bailey said. 'We lost the Fairfield match last week by our own mistakes and not necessarily what they did. We can't make foolish mistakes if we want to win games.”

The second set was completely different although the score was the same at 25-11. The Demons were unable to score offensive points because they couldn't get into their offense. The Bloodhounds served a number of aces and ones that weren't aces were not handled well.

Trailing 13-3, Mahr called timeout.

'Their libero (Josie Pumphrey) is very aggressive and a good server,” Mahr said. 'She served a lot of balls that could've been aces. We got touches on them, but we did not get good passes. Having that tough of a serve keeps us out of the offense that we need because of bad passes. That forced us to be out of system, which in turn gives them something easier to come back at us harder.”

An ace by Lauren Bailey gave the Bloodhounds a 23-7 lead. The Demons had a brief rally, highlighted by a cross-court kill from Greiner.

'When we played them earlier, they were not that efficient,” Mahr said. 'They are Fort Madison and they are going to come out every single time and get good contact on the ball, offensively and defensively. They are everywhere. But we made too many errors. That in turn gives them free points.”

Anderson had consecutive kills to start the third set, but Mahr called timeout, trailing 12-3.

'It is hard to come back from that, especially when we were not consistent with anything that we did,” Mahr said. 'Usually in every match, we can count on one thing being consistent. Tonight, we were just a little bit sub-par in everything we did on our side of the net.”

The Bloodhounds, who were ranked earlier in the season, won the set 25-13. The first unsuccessful Ft. Madison serve came in the third set with a 23-11 lead.

'Being ranked can give us confidence, but it also puts a bull's-eye on us,” Bailey said. 'We did not handle it well because we did not play well for a couple weeks with that bull's-eye on us. We are just now starting to get back into the things that we want to do. This is the right time of the year to do that.”

Six finished the match with six kills, seven digs and two blocks. Bailey had eight digs and five kills. Alexa Mitchell had 16 assists and two aces. Greiner had four kills and Anderson six. Kinsey Duwa got to 17 digs and Kaitlyn Mitchell had five.

'I think part of our problem was a mental lapse,” Mahr said. 'We were not focused on what our job was.”

Ft. Madison is 18-10 overall, 7-1 in the SEC for a first-place finish.

Washington falls to 10-17 overall, but 4-3 in the league. The Demons play at Fairfield Thursday.