Nick Frias
ASU Student Journalist

Volleyball: Sabercats fall to Marcos de Niza

September 20, 2018 by Nick Frias, Arizona State University


Saguaro heads out onto the court before the second set. (Nick Frias, AZPreps365)

The Saguaro Sabercats volleyball team lost their fourth game out of the last five Thursday, falling in straight sets to the Marcos De Niza Padres.

Saguaro jumped out to an early 6-2 lead in the first set thanks in part to a few passing mishaps from the Padres, but Marcos De Niza tightened things up and worked their way back to a 6-6 tie. The Padres took their first lead at 8-7 and they never looked back in the first set, going up by as many as 11 points en route to a 25-20 first set victory.

Marcos De Niza started off the second set with the same energy they had at the end of the first, taking four out of the first five points. Saguaro nearly closed the gap, slimming the deficit to a single point before Marcos De Niza began to run away with the game, creating a 23-12 lead.

The Sabercats brought themselves within seven before another fault on the service gave the Padres a victory in the second set.

At risk of losing in straight sets at home to a conference opponent, Saguaro battled hard early on in the third set, but the Padres proved to be too much for the Sabercats to handle, as they took the third and final set with relative ease.

The Padres won each set by at least four points, putting away the Sabercats 25-20, 25-17 and 25-21. Every single game-winning point came when Saguaro was serving to the victorious Padres, and the Sabercats lost each set on a fault after the service.

Saguaro's inconsistencies while serving were in full swing tonight. The Sabercats gave away the game with three different faults on set points, but they also rode the strength of their serves during the rallies they had Thursday night.

Much of the Sabercats' service success is due to the emergence of sophomore Emma White. White's 58 aces in 2018 not only leads the team, but also puts herself, and Saguaro, well above the national average for aces thus far this season.

Saguaro failed to serve well consistently, but such was not the case for Marcos De Niza.

"We executed the basics tonight," Padres coach Melissa Yee said. "When we serve well it’s hard to beat us, and we served really well tonight.”

The Padres not only totalled 10 aces in comparison to 4 faults, but they also put the ball in tough spots for Saguaro off the service.

Marcos De Niza senior captain Elyse Olson spoke after the game on her team's performance.

"I thought that there was good competition between both sides. Saguaro did a lot of good things tonight," Olson said. The 5-foot-10 middle blocker played a huge part in disrupting the Sabercats at the net, another very important part of the Padres' style of volleyball.

Despite the loss, White, the only underclassman captain for Tim Church's Sabercats, kept her head up.

"We've had a couple ups and downs this season," White said, "but it's a lot better than last year and we're definitely progressing better."

The Sabercats fell to 5-12 and 0-2 in conference play Thursday and will have a chance to return to the win column next Tuesday when they travel to Gilbert to face Mesquite.