Warriors sweep Nikes on senior night

WAYLAND - The WACO crowd was fired up for senior night and breast cancer awareness night on Thursday night in Wayland, and the Warrior volleyball team gave the fans something more to cheer about with a 3-0 sweep of Notre Dame.

The Warriors grinded out wins in the first two sets, 25-23 and 25-22, and closed the night out with a dominant 25-13 win in the third game.

WACO got out to a fast start in the first set. The Warriors spread around the ball early, getting kills from six different players en route to a 14-8 lead. Notre Dame caught fire, however, and scored seven points in a row to take a 15-14 advantage.

A kill by Nadiyah Brown ended the Nike run and the rest of the game was back-and-forth. Notre Dame held a two-point lead at 22-20, but the Warriors closed the game out on a 5-1 run. Clara Schmitz had two kills in that run. Laney Graber scored on a block, and a WACO kill followed that to give the Warriors a win, it 25-23.

Notre Dame scored four of the first five points of the game in the second set, but the Warriors immediately started to climb back. Aubri Garnsey had an early ace and Lona Farrier had a couple of kills, the second of which gave WACO an 8-6 lead and forced the Nikes into a timeout.

Notre Dame did come back to take a lead at 11-10 and then 12-10, but the Warriors took back the lead and never gave it up. The Nikes made a late run but WACO held on for a 25-22 win, putting them one set away from a sweep.

WACO crushed it in game three. L. Graber got things going with an ace. Kristen Conley had two aces early on, and Morgan Graber had two kills in the first 15 points. WACO grabbed a double-digit lead early on when Lindsey Roth put the Warriors up 14-4 with an ace of her own.

The WACO serving continued to dominate throughout the third set. The Warriors had two more aces in the game and WACO held a double-digit lead throughout the game.

WACO cruised to the 25th-point, getting a game-ending kill from L. Graber to win it 25-13 and lock up a SEISC South Division home win.

After the game, WACO head coach Jay Coble said he thought the Warriors were a little shakey early on but credited their serving and serve receive for helping them pull away.

'If we had lost that very first game, we'd probably still be playing right now,” Coble said. 'We just kept fighting and found away in the first game, and then our serving pulled us through.”

Schmitz, M. Graber and Conley co-led the team with eight kills apiece in the win. Brown had four kills. Farrier and L. Graber had one apiece, and Garnsey had one.

L. Graber's 28 assists led the team. She also had 14 digs. Garnsey led the defense with 20 digs, and Brown's four blocks led the team.

The Warriors went 56-64 on the serve with 10 aces. Scarf had three of those. Roth and Conley finished with two each. Garnsey, L. Graber and Ellie Miles all had one.