Pirate Volleyball Bounces Back With Important Wins

By GANNON HANEVOLD

Moapa Valley Progress

The Moapa Valley High School Volleyball team travelled to Sky Pointe on Tuesday, October 16, to take on a team they had handled easily earlier in the season. This time around, though, the Eagles were an improved squad.

Jayden and Jocelyn Sanders led the Eagles’ team into a closely contested first set against the favored Pirates.

Ultimately, Moapa Valley would narrowly escape with a 25-23 set victory. The Eagles would fall in the second set by another close score, this time 25-20. In the next set, Sky Pointe defeated the Pirates, 25-20.

Hoping to end the match once and for all, Moapa Valley took care of business in the fourth set with a 25-18 victory.

The Pirates left with the win, but an unexpected test made for a good learning experience. “Defensively, Sky Pointe has improved drastically,” said MVHS coach Mandie Matheson. “They played very tough defense against us and it got us making a lot more errors than we have in the past,. We weren’t expecting such tough defense from them.”

But Matheson left the game with optimism as well. “It was a good match,” she said. “We served tough, passed well, and showed some improvements in areas we were kind of flat in the week before.”

In their second game of the week, the Pirates hosted the fifth seeded Chaparral Cowboys, desperate to claw their way into a playoff position. Moapa Valley had other ideas, though.

A shaky start complicated things in the first set. But the Pirates would cruise through the Cowboys, winning in three sets of scores 25-16, 25-7, and 25-4. Abbie Evans had ten kills and sophomore Emma Peay had eight for the Pirates. Andalin Hillstead led the team in assists with 20.
“I thought the girls came out going through the motions, but we had a nice fiery talk after the first set about playing fun volleyball,” Matheson said. “The girls really responded well and played with a lot more enthusiasm.”

This week will mark the end of the regular season and the start of the third phase of the year: a tough road to a potential third consecutive state championship appearance for the Pirates.