(Staff photo/Preston Byers) McDonald's Ava Salomone sets for her teammates during the Blue Devils' home game against LaBrae on Monday.
MCGANNON — The McDonald girls volleyball team remained undefeated on Monday, defeating LaBrae at home in straight sets (25-17, 25-20, 25-5) to improve its record to 13-0 on the 2024 season.
Despite the Blue Devils' win in a non-conference game, the Vikings were a frustrating “ugly” opponent for McDonald coach Mike Klockner's squad.
“LaBrae is a well-coached team and they play a good defense, so we knew we had to be smart on the offensive side,” Klockner said, “and we didn't execute the way we wanted to. Their defense did a good job of limiting our offense, so it was a little bit disconcerting.”
The match started off pretty competitively with both teams trading points back and forth in the first half of the opening set, but eventually things started to go wrong for Labrai.
They pulled within two, 15-13, but the Vikings scored 10 of the set's final 14 points to give McDonald an early lead.
Lovellaie missed the second set as well. A strong comeback, backed by a series of aces from Shelby Bragg, overcame an early deficit to take an 18-17 lead.
But McDonald finished just as strong as she did in the first set, as the Blue Devils won eight of the final 10 points in the second set to seize the match and, unfortunately for coach Courtney Kish and the Vikings, seize the momentum of the match.
“We had some moments in the second set where we had some momentum, but then going into the third set, I feel like we just didn't get the momentum we needed,” Kish said.
After suffering two tough sets in a row, LaBrae couldn't muster the energy to bounce back. Instead, McDonald dominated the third set, winning all but five points to record her 13th win of the season.
“We just couldn't get the momentum going,” Kish said of the lopsided third set. “Volleyball is a momentum game, and when you can't get the momentum going, it's hard to keep it going.”
Monday's loss was the fourth for Lovellae (12-4), whose only losses have come to McDonald and Crestview, both of which are still unbeaten, and Garfield, which started the season 8-0.
Kish is hopeful his team is learning from these losses.
“The biggest thing is to go in focused and ready to execute our game plan,” Kish said. “I think opponents aren't always going to be ready. … We want to learn from our losses and hopefully we can bounce back tomorrow.”
Klockner also wants his team to stay focused on everything other than their 13-0 record.
“I haven't talked to them about it. It's one game at a time,” Kloeckner said. “It's a good start. It's a great start. But at the same time, every team we play is a challenge and we have to get better every time.”
But as long as the losses stay clean and the wins keep piling up, Klockner knows McDonald is going to get the best out of opponents, and he's tried to get that message across to his players without pointing out why.
“'We have a target on our backs, and we're going to take the best chance we can out of every team,'” Klockner told his team at a recent practice. “They're going to come out to beat us, and we've got to be ready. We've got to be ready to take the best chance we can out of every team.”
Springfield will get its next chance to hand McDonald its first loss after losing to the Blue Devils on Aug. 27. The Tigers host McDonald on Tuesday.
Labrai visits the champions today for the third of five consecutive away games.
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