During the five-day span between August 22 and 26, the Buffalos burst through five consecutive rounds of daily volleyball matches, which would have been more potentially exhausting than it was, but for the gladly grueling conditioning program personally paced by Training Coach Micah Young’s intentionally intense work-out regimen.
On the 22, they hosted St. George’s 4A Pine View Panthers, winning in 3-straight sets [26-24,25-10,25- 23]! Traveling to Panguitch, losing 3-1 [25- 15, 23-25, 25-14, 25-9]. And back home again to be broken by the 2A San Juan Broncos 3-1 [24-26, 25-20, 25- 19, 25,22]. Then, at the Dixie Invitational Varsity Tournament, they succumbed to the 5A Stansbury Stallions, 3-0, on Friday, with a following day’s 3-1 finale loss to the American Heritage 2A Patriots.
“We had a great week of volleyball ... lots and lots of volleyball!” expounds Coach Harmony Cox. “We had some of our biotically affected the team, as Coach Lance Peterson comments, “It was good that we were able to get the game in: it was a rough one! We had bases loaded four times: 12 base-runners! And we didn’t get one of them in, which is pretty astounding that you can leave that many athletes that played probably 13 games this week. It’s kind of an interesting schedule. We were missing some varsity matches. And so, [we] were looking to add some, and they could only add them this week, Tuesday through Thursday, with a tournament Friday and Saturday. That’s a lot to ask a teen-age body to perform that long. But I was proud of their efforts and attitudes. They worked really hard! We were super-close in a lot of matches, but I wasn’t disappointed in their performance at all.”
Preparing in practice for the continuing season with a bit of a breather (before heading to Beaver on Friday, September 1st), she notes, “We got to see really well what we need to focus on for this week. We’re trying to attack better. In-system we’re looking to get really good at serve-receive behind a screen. We saw that a lot; a lot of teams screening with their middles and their blockers in the middle. And then, they’d serve over the middle of it: super-short, superfast. So, we’re gonna’ work on that: work on attacking certain areas of the court that will be kept close. And being good teammates. We had a great week!”
Senior Kimber Reeve shares her perspective. “We nearly had a game every day this last week, besides Monday; and so, it was kinda’ rough. We, like, started strong; and then, we lost every single game afterwards. But I think it’s a ‘good loss’, if that makes sense. It helped us to see what we need to get better as a team. So, I feel like after this week we’re gonna’ come back stronger than ever, and we’re gonna’ work on all the little things we saw last weekend, and we’re gonna’ be a better team.
“And I’m pretty proud of my team. Like, I would go to battle with these girls. Like, they’re the hardest working girls ever; like they never give up! That’s one thing they showed this week: they just ever give up! We kept pushing as hard as we could, and I’m just proud of my girls. They’re awesome!”
