Cougars Volleyball Falls at Home to Mounties

The Montclair girls volleyball team is back to .500 and the Cougar girls are still looking for answers. On Monday afternoon at Columbia High School, the Mounties defeated the Cougars 2-0 (25-21, 25-10) to improve to 6-6, while dropping the home team to 1-8 overall.

The first game was an error-filled affair for both teams. The Mounties and Cougars combined for eight service errors and 13 hitting errors. Columbia was especially plagued by errors early on, picking up three service errors and one hitting error within the first 10 points scored.

"We made a lot of mistakes," said Columbia head coach Charles Taylor. "What really killed us was our serving. We're losing a lot of points on serving."

Because of a bunch of Mounties' mistakes, the Cougars still found themselves up 7-5 in the opening game. But two aces, a service point and a kill by Montclair's Tory Sneden gave Montclair a two-point lead. Up 9-7, Montclair went on to win eight of the next 14 points, to go up 17-13.

Two Montclair hitting errors combined with two aces by Columbia's Jahaan Scipio knotted up the score at 17. However, Montclair closed out on an 8-4 run, featuring five kills during that stretch.

"Although we had beaten Columbia in the preliminary round of the county tournament, you can't take any team for granted," said Montclair head coach Major Jennings. "I think we came out early on taking them lightly."

After playing a relatively close first game, the Mounties did not waste anytime putting distance between themselves and the Cougars in the second game. Danielle England got Columbia started with an ace, but it was all Montclair after that. The Mounties went on a 14-3 run, taking command of the contest right away.

"We cleaned it up in the second game. We didn't play well in the first game," Jennings said. "Primarily we just did a better job of passing the volleyball."

Columbia went on a brief 4-0 run to close to within nine, but the Mounties closed the door, earning three kills and an ace on the way to the 25-10 win in Game 2. While Montclair seemed to sure up its mistakes in the second contest, the Cougars had trouble keeping their big swingers in check. The Cougars gave up eight aces and nine kills in the second game. Contrarily, Columbia earned three aces and one kill in the final game.

"We covered their hitters in the first game," Taylor said. "There was a lack of communication in the second game."

Overall the Cougars ended with six aces and nine kills through both contests, led by three kills from England and Kaitlin Kling and two aces each from Julia Thomson and Scipio. Montclair earned 15 kills, six blocks and 14 aces in the win. They were led by Monimia Murphy with four blocks and by Sneden with six aces and four kills.