Photo by Birdie Boblett
The James River volleyball team will look to get back on the winning track this week when the Knights host Martinsville and arch-rival Glenvar. The River girls have dropped two district matches after opening the season 9-2.
Last week in Hillsville the Knights lost to host Carroll County in a Three Rivers District match. After winning the first set, 25-19, the host Cavaliers pulled out a marathon second set, 32-20. Carroll then won the next two, 25-18 and 25-22, to put it away.
On Monday River was back on the road at Radford and lost another 3RD match in four sets, 25-20, 25-19, 16-25 and 25-16. That dropped River to 3-3 in the district and 9-4 overall.
“These were two rough ones for us,” said River coach Linsey Firebaugh. “At Carroll we came out like a ball of fire and were ahead in the second set but errors late in the game, especially when going point for point, really hurt us.
“At Radford it never felt like we truly checked in. We’ve been dealing with injuries but the things that went wrong in this game were a lot of mental errors. We have a lot of play left so we are really looking at bouncing back quickly.”
The Knights were scheduled to play host to Martinsville on Tuesday. Glenvar is here Thursday and the Knights are looking to avenge an early season loss to the Highlanders. Glenvar comes into the week at 14-2.
Next Monday the Knights are at Franklin County for a non-district match.
