NEVC plays in Thomas Jefferson Tournament

NEVC competed in the Thomas Jefferson Tournament on Saturday, Sept. 17, in Joplin.

Coach Teresa Lyness: For their first non-conference all-day tournament experience for the NEVC girls they performed great.  We used beginning pool play  to try some different starting line-up combinations and to give younger players a little  playing time.   We lost our first pool match to Pleasant Hope 0-2.

After that it was “game on” resulting in splitting our second pool match with Thomas Jefferson. That earned us second place in our pool, which led us to bracket play meeting the Purple Pool third seat McAuley Catholic.  The girls played well and defeated McAuley in 2 sets 25-21 and 25-15. 

Then we played the Purple Pool first seed, Exeter.  Exeter had some good servers but it was their powerful hitting game that took us out.  NEVC, though out matched, did not give up or become overwhelmed, they fought to the end giving Exeter a competitive match yet eventually succumbing to them 17-25 and 15-25.

I am real proud of the girls.  This gave us a wonderful opportunity to try new things, such as the Libero position.  First time as Libero, Senior Crystal Bogardus, convinced me of the value of the position and that she can make it work well for us. 

There were lots of outstanding plays. Some of the top stats for the tournament overall were:  Camille Buttorf 9 kills, Erin Kittsmiller led both serving aces and serving receptions with 11 and 19, respectively, Christanne Middleton 12 digs, Spencer Hoagland 10 assists.