Two wins for Trojans in season opener

A nice little four-team tournament to open the 2010 season became rather heated by the end of the night.

After Fairfield and IMS both notched victories over Albia and Eddyville-Blakesburg, the action picked up steam as the two squads did battle in a three-game match to cap the night. Class 1A ninth-ranked IMS held off a Trojan comeback effort to best Fairfield 25-19, 23-25, 15-10.

Fairfield beat Albia 25-21, 25-19 and E-B 25-22, 25-15 to begin the evening.

Eleven different Trojans saw the court by the end of the night, and what began as a rocky start ended as a solid night that saw them come up just short against a senior-led IMS team with high expectations for 2010.

?If you saw us at 5:30, then saw us at 8:30, it was quite a bit different,? said Fairfield head coach Nancy Diers, who began her 25th year with the program. ?We just didn?t have a lot of cohesiveness at the beginning, but as the games went on, we got a little more comfortable with what we were doing.?

In the nightcap, IMS? Emma Yutzy served from a 19-18 deficit all the way to the finish line to the 25-19 finish line to give her team a 1-0 match lead. Yutzy picked up two aces in the run while Meridyth Bates put down two kills including the game winner.

But that?s where the Trojans dug in. Fairfield squeaked out a victory in game two ? a game that neither team led by more than three points at any point and featured 10 ties. Sophomore Sidney Baumann looked good all night as she stepped into the outside hitter position and put down a kill along with Tori Ogden for two of the final points in the 25-23 victory that evened the match.

Ogden led Fairfield with seven kills in the match with help from Sami Herman?s team high 11 assists.

The Trojans took the momentum from the win to a 1-0 lead in the rubber match, but IMS stormed away from there. Freshman Gretchen Geyer served the next four points and IMS never looked back. The lead stretched to as many as five points, which was the final deficit thanks to Carly Unruh?s match-winning kill off a Fairfield block attempt.

?Coming in here, I felt like it was going to be a great way to make us better right away. The girls came together and got it done,? said IMS head coach Dwight Gingerich. ?Our decision making and hustle got a little better as we went along, and it was a good night for us.?

Fairfield has a week off before diving into Southeast Conference play next Thursday at Mount Pleasant.

?I think we played right with them for the most part. There were a couple lulls that put us down 5-6 points and it?s tough to come back,? Diers said. ?Everything we did wrong is very correctable and just takes some more repetitions.?

The repetitions were more noticeably lacking as the Trojans began the night vs. Albia. Fairfield fell behind by as much as 16-7 before finally pulling together and roaring back. Senior Rachel Schwarz came through as the team?s most powerful server on the night and went on a run to help Fairfield tally the final seven points. The Trojans picked up their first tie at 21-21 en route to the 25-21 victory.

Schwarz had two aces in the match and was 30-31 on the night while Nikia Story was 31-32 with a team-high nine aces.

?Our serving was a saving grace for us. Our defense was on and off, and I think we were afraid of stepping on other people?s toes instead of going after the ball and keeping the it up. We can argue about who?s supposed to be taking it the next day at practice,? said Diers. ?But we picked up some momentum, got things going and coming from behind against Albia to get that first win really helped us out.?

Fairfield suffered through a rocky start again in game two before turning things around quickly. Schwarz once more served Fairfield to a lead with seven-straight early points to pave the way for the match-clinching 25-19 victory.

Ogden and Baumann were the kill leaders again on the outside with eight and seven, respectively.

As the lineup became more acclimated to the game-time atmosphere, the Trojans tallied another sweep with the 25-22, 25-15 win vs. E-B. The Rockets held just one lead the entire match ? a 1-0 advantage to begin game two ? before Fairfield started rolling.

Senior libero Dana Diers picked up a team-leading 35 digs across the three matches while covering a lot of ground, which she will be asked to do all season.

The front line was led by upperclassmen McKenzie Lyman and Ogden, but the experience dropped off from there. Sophomore Erin Thompson was inserted into the starting lineup, fellow sophomore Katie Anderson saw spot action in the back row and freshman Sydney Burnett backed up Herman at the setter position in her first time stepping onto a high school court.

?We have our four seniors, who are very good at what they do, but most are positional players that are in for three rotations. That means we?re going to have to platoon sophomores, juniors and the one freshman in,? said Diers.

And the lineup figures to only get better and more tightly knit as it moves forward.

?We put our lineup together for the first time Monday night, and that was the first time they had played next to each other,? Diers added. ?It?s a work in progress, and it will more than likely change as the season goes along.?

The work in progress will continue this week through practice heading into Thursday?s tilt at Mount Pleasant.