Fairfield volleyball team 2-2 at weekend tournament

The inconsistent Saturday play of the Fairfield volleyball team continued at the 22nd annual Centerville Redette Varsity Volleyball Tournament in Centerville this weekend.

Fairfield beat Moulton-Udell 21-8, 21-17, lost to Davis County 18-21, 17-21 and beat Seymour 21-11, 21-8 to reach the semifinal round. The Trojans concluded the day with a 11-25, 25-23, 12-15 loss to Centerville.

Solid serving all around helped Fairfield start the day off with a lopsided win over Moulton-Udell.

The Trojans went 41-of-42 serving in the match and only missed one serve, while Taylor Neil and Tori Ogden recorded two aces apiece.

Also in the match, Ogden recorded six kills, McKenzie Lyman had five and Sydney Howard slammed four.

?Moulton-Udell?s not a real high-powered offensive team, so it?s just a matter of making sure you do what you need to do to win,? said Fairfield head coach Nancy Diers.

Next on the slate for the Trojans was Davis County, a team they had split their previous two meetings with in 2011. Both games featured early leads for Fairfield before long service runs from Davis County sunk the Trojans in both sets.

The Trojans struggled in their passing game vs. the Mustangs, and consequently the offense couldn?t find its footing. Fairfield recorded just 13 kills, led by four kills from Ogden, in the two games.

?When our passing goes awry, it really seems to hurt our offensive push so I thought that was our main things,? Diers said. ?We were either passing the ball too far off the net or it was just way to close for our setters to get a good set off for our hitters.?

Taylor Silvers and Ogden led the defensive effort with nine kills apiece, and Erin Thompson had eight.

Baumann was 10-of-10 serving with four aces and Howard was 7-of-8 serving with one ace.

Serving continued to be a weapon for the Trojans vs. Seymour, as they bounced back from the Davis County loss to get their second win of the day. Fairfield connected on 39 of 41 serves and recorded 10 aces in the match ? their highest total of the night.

Sydney Burnett helped out with nine assists. Howard had six kills.

With pool play over and a 2-1 record to show from it, Fairfield went into the semifinal round as a No. 2 seed vs. Centerville. The Trojans had beaten the Big Redettes the weekend prior, but a sluggish start proved costly against a squad that has given Fairfield headaches in the past.

Fairfield found itself in a 1-10 hole to start game one before inching its way to 9-14. But that?s as close as the Trojans would inch, as a seven-point service run by the Big Redettes put the game out of reach.

?Game one was just not a good game for us at all,? Diers said. ?I thought we?d be a little more fired up, I thought we?d be excited to go. We just came out really flat.?

Despite serve receive continuing to be Fairfield?s nemesis throughout the match ? the Trojans only successfully passed 38 percent vs. the Big Redettes ? Fairfield came back in game two only to fall in the final set 15-12.

In the match, Taylor Neil had three aces, Ogden and Howard chipped in 12 digs apiece, and Lyman had a team-high seven kills.

?Centerville did a nice job finding our holes in our defense, something we?ve been trying to correct all season, but they found it and scored some real easy points just tipping the ball,? Diers said.

?It gives us something to work on here for this last week of the regular season and going into our two last conference games.?

The Fairfield volleyball team, 24-9 overall and 56-22 in games played, has all eyes on winning the Southeast Conference title outright with a trip to Keokuk Tuesday.