Photo by Leigh Downey
The James River girls will be looking to make it 3-0 tonight when they travel to Bedford to take on the Minutewomen in volleyball. The Knights won their first two matches to open the season last week.
River opened the season with a home match against Liberty last week and won in three sets, 25-20, 27-25 and 25-10.
“It was a good start to the season,” said coach Linsey Firebaugh. “The girls kept the pressure on all night with tough serving and aggressive hitting.”
Ashby Wilkes led River with 11 kills. Ayden Jennings had seven kills to go with three aces, nine assists and seven digs. Chloe Helmandollar had 17 digs and Sydnee Breeding served up five aces.
On Thursday the girls were back home to host Bassett and struggled off first whistle, losing the first two sets 25-19 and 25-20. However, they rallied back to win the next three, and the match, 25-18, 25-16 and 15-8 in the deciding set to 15.
“It was a rough night,” said Firebaugh. “Hitting errors killed us in the first two sets. Luckily, the girls came alive. They limited errors and were much more aggressive offensively and defensively in the third, fourth and fifth sets.”
The Knights will play the same two opponents this week, only reversing sites. After playing at Liberty tonight they’ll travel to Bassett tomorrow on Thursday, September 4.
The Knights have back-to-back home games next week. They’ll host Roanoke Catholic on Monday and Radford for their Three Rivers District opener on Tuesday.
