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Panthers trumped by Grayhounds on senior night
Mt. Pleasant swept by Burlington for second time
MT. PLEASANT — On Tuesday night, Mt. Pleasant volleyball celebrated its senior night with a Southeast Conference matchup with Burlington.
When all was said and done between the two conference rivals, there wasn’t much celebration for the Panthers as the Grayhounds walked away three set winners, 25-11, 25-11 and 25-18.
It just wasn’t the Panthers’ night as Burlington jumped out to 10-3 leads in each of the first two sets.
“Volleyball is a game of rallies,” Mt. Pleasant head coach Logan Wall said. “They go on a rally and then we need to get it back and go on a rally. I’ve been talking to them a lot about minigames of three and then getting that big point of winning three balls in a row. We just didn’t do it tonight.”
In the opening frame, Mt. Pleasant and Burlington were tied at 3-3 after an ace from the Panther’s Addison Clark.
However, the Grayhounds scored the next seven points and the Panthers would never come any closer than that the rest of the way.
That set the tone for the rest of the night as errors plagued the Panthers throughout the contest.
“I think we got too focused on what they were doing instead of focusing on our end,” Wall said. “That’s part of that mental game. We have to take care of our side of the court first. We have to eliminate the errors on our side first.”
Set two saw the two squads knotted at 2-2 early on, but a three-point swing gave Burlington a 5-2 advantage.
A kill by Clark made it 5-3, but yet again, a big run by the Burlington put the Grayhounds over the top.
Burlington rattled off five straight points off the serve of Sela Rascon for another 10-3 lead.
Mt. Pleasant trailed by as much as 14 in the second set. An ace from Emma Starr got it down to 12 at 21-9, but the deficit was too significant to eclipse.
In the third and final set, Mt. Pleasant started to find its footing, but much like the opening two sets, not before Burlington put up a big lead.
A Zoey Atkinson kill and ace cut the Burlington lead to one early, 5-4.
The Grayhounds built up some momentum with five straight points to push the game to 10-4.
Mt. Pleasant never let up.
Four straight serves by the Panther’s Courtney Raub ended with four consecutive hitting errors by the Grayhounds, giving Mt. Pleasant one last push to get on top down just two, 10-8.
“I feel like we made them earn those points in the final set,” Wall said. “We had some good rallies. Alex Scott was hitting some great balls and I put in Elaina (Holtkamp), who hasn’t seen the floor very much and she stepped it up, getting some blocks and kills. I’m happy that our bench came in and stepped it up.”
Two points is as close as the Panthers would come from completing the comeback.
Burlington scored seven of the following nine points on its way to a 17-10 lead.
An ace from the Panther’s Abby Carthey made it 17-12, but Burlington scored five in a row to make it 22-12.
The Panthers scratched and clawed for as long as they could.
A kill by Clark and back-to-back kills from Alex Scott made it 22-15, but Burlington was able to hang on for the victory.
With the loss, the Panthers slip to 4-13.
