The Milan News-Leader
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Milan takes two from Rams
Doubleheader sweep gives Big Reds first two league wins
By Jerry Hinnen, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: February 8, 2007
Coming into Monday night, the Milan volleyball team had yet to post a Huron League victory.
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By the time Monday was over, the team had posted two.
Milan took both ends of a long home doubleheader against the Flat Rock Rams, taking the first match in five games and the second in four. The deeper Big Reds took advantage of the visitors' thinner bench, wearing down the Rams in the second match with comfortable game wins of 25-13, 25-18 and 25-17.
The wins continued a run of strong play for Milan that began with a solid performance against Huron power St. Mary's Catholic Central and continued last Wednesday at home against Riverview, where the Big Reds took Game 3 25-22 and scored a minimum of 19 points in every game against the favored Pirates.
"They've definitely picked it up," said head coach Andrea Marshall. "We started the season playing well, then we went through a bit of a lull, and now we're starting to get some momentum again … We changed their rotations up and now it's giving them a little more confidence."
That confidence was needed after what looked like an easy Milan victory in the first Flat Rock match slipped away. A kill and assisted block by Kaitlyn Eisen snapped a 17-all tie in Game 1 of the match. Kills by Carolyn Nelson and Bekah Draves sealed the 25-20 win.
The Big Reds then used a six-point service run by Nelson to open Game 2 and a 9-1 run in mid-game to cruise to a 25-15 win.
Flat Rock took the last two points of Game 3 to win 26-24, but it looked like Milan had the match sewn up after taking a commanding 18-9 lead in Game 4. The Rams responded by taking 15 of the next 16 points for a shocking 24-19 lead and eventual 25-21 win.
An angry Milan team regrouped and burst out of the gates in the winner-take-all Game 5, winning eight straight points on Nelson's serve and kills by Jennifer Robinson and Draves for a quick 9-2 lead. A pair of kills by Jennifer Dennison and strong defensive work by libero Chelsea Thomas pushed the lead to 14-3, and the Big Reds would take the match with a 15-6 win.
Afterward, Marshall was disappointed that her team had allowed the match to go to five games, but also gave the team credit for rebounding from Game 4 and putting away the match.
"I'm happy we showed enough perseverance to get the win," she said. "They could have folded up, gotten down, but they definitely stepped up and finished strong. It's a good accomplishment for Milan."
Flat Rock showed some perseverance of its own by winning Game 1 of the second half of the doubleheader 25-17, but from there it was all Big Reds. Powered by Nelson's setting and powerful hitting from Eisen, Draves and Dennison, the Milan attack began to flex its muscle just as the Big Red defense — powered by an increasingly impressive series of digs from Thomas and Kaitlyn Ludwig's defensive presence at the net — began to blunt the attack of the Rams.
The result was a 21-4 Big Red lead in Game 2, an 18-6 run in Game 3 (erasing an early 9-1 deficit), and a decisive 8-2 run in Game 4 to clinch the match.
Marshall said the wins gave her team some confidence headed into Wednesday's match against Monroe-Jefferson, but that the most important thing — with districts looming — was that in both the Riverview and Flat Rock matches her team was playing with confidence.
"Our whole goal is to be competitive," she said. "We were competitive against SMCC; we were competitive against Riverview. We've got everybody into that mindset. We're a competitive team now."
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