Greyhounds blank Fairfield in first SEC visit

FAIRFIELD - The Trojans were a gracious host to Burlington last night as the new member of the Southeast Conference took a 3-0 win over Fairfield.

'We did not play horrible, so we are all right,” Fairfield coach Diana Drish said. '(Burlington is) a well-rounded team and they have a lot of seniors. We knew they were a good team because we have been watching them. Their seniors have been playing varsity since they were freshman and they have been progressing so we knew they were going to be good. And they were.”

The first point of the night may have been the longest rally of the night and Burlington won it, sprinting out to a 5-1 lead before the Trojans rallied to get within 11-9. Drish timeouts at 13-9 and 23-12 didn't slow the Greyhounds, who won 25-13.

Burlington ran its offense through the middle with hitters Angel Baylark and Bailey Wiemann scoring points.

'We knew Fairfield was a highly disciplined team and we would have our hands full,” Burlington assistant coach Wil Wiemann said. 'We knew that in the past it was either them or Fort Madison that ruled this conference. We knew we had to play our best ball.”

The Greyhounds did that in the second set, taking leads of 8-3 and 16-8. Drish called time at each of those junctures and the Trojans got as close as 16-12 before falling 25-13.

'All (Baylark) did was tip, tip, tip and that was because we had four hands up there for a block,” Drish said. 'When we started picking up the tip, she started swinging and she found a few, but she also gave us a few in our hands. I think that made her more nervous and she went back to tipping. We wanted to get up there and distract her.”

Fairfield couldn't get momentum when Baylark was off the floor.

'That is when we needed to capitalize, but they are not just a one-person team,” Drish said. 'We couldn't just key on the one player.”

Fairfield had never led and only tied the score once in the first two sets, but tied it four times in the third set and took its first lead of the match.

Burlington responded to pull away to a 19-8 lead before a Drish timeout.

'Our serve received was not as awesome as it should be,” Drish said. 'We are still working on it and we need to continue working on it. When it's time for our hitter to put the ball somewhere, we cannot put it right to them. We have to put it in a hole. We need to mix it up and hit it hard. We can't just lob it at them.”

Confusion over a substitution trailing 22-8 seemed to inspire the Trojans with four straight points but a hitting error got it to match point and the Greyhounds won 25-14.

'If our passing is on, good luck to the other team because both of our middles can jump out of the gym,” Wiemann said. 'Baylark can hit with power and those are demoralizing.”

Burlington is 5-1 overall and 3-0 in the SEC with all three wins sweeps.

Fairfield's record falls to 2-8 overall and 1-2 in the SEC.

'We knew their record did not tell the story,” Wiemann said. 'We knew that if we wanted to be successful, we had to be able to win in this gym. We have a lot of girls with high expectations this year. When you can hit high on top of the ball, the volleyball world is yours.”

'We are going to serve more aggressive because we did not serve aggressively,” Drish said. 'We are going to work more on our blocking. We have to get our little arms stronger.”

Fairfield plays next when it goes to the Ottumwa tournament Saturday and is scheduled to play Albia.