Sep. 18—MORAVIA — After 12 years and 21 consecutive matches, Moulton-Udell battled to the end three weeks earlier to finally come out on top against Moravia on the volleyball court.
Thursday night, the Eagles proved that five-set win was no fluke. Moulton-Udell erased a 9-3 deficit in the decisive third set and rallied after trailing 10-6 in the fourth set, spoiling Moravia’s bid to secure its first win of the season with a 25-19, 11-25, 25-17, 25-16 Bluegrass Conference victory, securing a second straight win in the battle of Appanoose Country rivals.
“We’ve preached the last few days in practice about each player doing their job,” Moulton-Udell volleyball coach Jenny Jarr said. “Even when things weren’t the prettiest, we got it done.
“We kept preaching to the girls about showing heart. If you throw your heart out there on the floor for your teammates, you’ll be successful.”
The loss was another frustrating result for the Mohawks, who failed to sustain success after seemingly taking control of the match following a dominant 14-point win in the second set. Everything seemed to be going Moravia’s way after seven kills and five aces gave the Mohawks a 24-8 lead late in the second set.
The momentum continued early in the third set. Three consecutive ace serves by Keelie Anderson gave Moravia an early 6-2 lead before a kill by Morgan Hawk and an mishit by the Eagles forced an early M-U timeout with Moravia suddenly leading the match 19-25, 25-11, 9-3.
Moulton-Udell, however, responded quickly out of the timeout scoring six straight points with a tying kill by Grace Wood completely erasing Moravia’s lead. The teams continued to exchange points with the Eagles finally taking the lead for good on a service error by Destiny Nathaniel followed by a closing run of six straight points that including three aces from Addie Hunter, giving M-U the 2-1 lead in the match.
“We’re a young team and we’re struggling to put it together,” Moravia head volleyball coach Rachel Helmick said. “We graduated six seniors last year. We have one girl with varsity experience coming into this year. We’re just a young, struggling team trying to find our way.”
Moravia (0-12) again got out to a good start in the fourth game of the match, scoring the first three points before consecutive aces by Finley Spencer gave the Mohawks a four-point lead, forcing another timeout to be spent by the Eagles. Once again, Moulton-Udell (2-2) responded out of the timeout scoring the next nine points to take the lead for good in the match.
“We just got our heads in each time. Our coaches kept encouraging us during those timeouts and let us know what to do,” M-U junior Zoey Hackathorn said. “We all just came together as one and started playing as a team again.”
Moravia made one last run at extending the match, pulling within 16-14 after scoring three straight points including a kill and ace serve by Alexa Bedford. The Mohawks nearly cut the deficit to one on the next point, but had a potential kill wiped out after an errant pass led to a foot fault at the net on the attack, kicking off a three-point run for the Eagles that all but put the match away.
“Serving has been a strength for us this year. Serve-receive has been a weakness,” Helmick said. “It’s all about developing mental toughness. Being able to realize they can do it and they can finish a match is a big thing for us. We’re going to put it together. This team is going to be a tough one to deal with in a couple of years.”
Moulton-Udell will look to avenge their only five-set loss of the season against Melcher-Dallas in the first of three matches for the Eagles scheduled for this weekend at the Saints’ home tournament this year taking place at Southeast Warren High School in Liberty Center. Moravia, meanwhile, will continue pursuing their first wins of the season Monday in a quadrangular that is currently still scheduled to be played at Van Buren County despite the Warrior volleyball team having to cancel two matches this week while dealing with a rise in the number of students out due to COVID-19.
— Scott Jackson can be reached at sjackson@ottumwacourier.com. Follow him on Twitter@CourierScott.