The Lady Bulldogs started their evening (and season) trailing an inspired Lady Vikings volleyball team seemingly, as soon as the opening whistle blew and quickly down 0-5 in the first set....and before they even knew it, things seemed to be going downhill in a hurry from there. It's been said before how "experience" is such an intangible advantage. The Dulles Lady Vikings have a volleyball program rich in talent and tradition with 4 seniors on this year's team who have been playing together at a high level since their 7th grades - and they relied on their school and club experiences to be where they needed to be; to control the tempo of the game; to have the ball bounce their way, and to look like they were playing intense volleyball without wasting any unused effort. Make no mistake about it, even though the Lady Bulldogs made some errors and things were not going their way, they would've probably defeated most of their opponents tonight. But the Lady Vikings played well enough tonight, that it really wouldn't matter of have made enough of a difference...
Lady Bulldog Middle Blocker Hannah Forst put a
nice move on the Dulles defenders for this point.
The Lady Vikings seemed to have an answer for everything the Lady Bulldogs threw at them, but when Hannah Fort blasted a great kill shot down the line to get Magnolia in the game at 1-5 and Michele Williams had a timely blocked point at 2-5, it looked as if the Lady Bulldogs righted their ship. But alas, the excitement for the Magnolia fans was short-lived as both teams traded points keeping a spread of 3 points between them - despite a 'lightning bolt' that Michele Williams put down on the floor at 5-8. Dulles answered the charge and immediately turned it up a notch and opened the lead to 5 points. Hannah Fort once again followed up with 2 great block points at 8-13 and 9-13, and a kill at 10-15, but the Lady Bulldogs could not sustain themselves falling 7 points behind at 14-21 and finally falling at 15-25.
Lady Bulldog OHR Ashlynn Newman using her verticle
advantage against Dulles, to 'shoot one' across to the corner.
This may be the Lady Bulldog's only courtesy wake-up call.....the Lady Bulldogs are going to have to word harder and play "near-flawless" volleyball moving forward and get back some of their early pre-season momentum!!
This audio clip starts up in Set #1 with the score: Magnolia 10 and Dulles 17.....
