For The Tribune
Seymour head coach Holly Birdsong said serving is definitely one of the strong points of her volleyball team, and the Owls showed their strength in that area with a 25-18, 25-10, 25-14 win against Martinsville on Thursday night in the Lloyd Scott Gymnasium.
“I felt like the girls went out and were serving tough tonight against the other team, and it was really allowing us to get some more points against their serve receive,” she said.
“Sometimes we don’t always capitalize on that in games, and we did that tonight. They were much more aggressive tonight.”
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The Artesians were on top 6-3 in the first set before back-to-back kills by Emilee Pollmann closed the deficit to 6-5.
After the visitors moved into an 8-6 lead, Lauren Fleetwood stepped to the serving line and served 12-straight points to put the Owls on top 18-8.
Jessica Blevins had a block and a kill during the rally, while the final two points in the string came on Martinsville errors.
The final two points in the set also came on Martinsville attacking errors.
The Artesians scored the first point of the second set before Mikayla Fee served nine straight points for a 9-1 lead.
The closest the Artesians came after that was 18-8.
Pollmann had a kill and Fee served an ace late in the match before Hannah Sipe served an ace for set point.
The third set was tied at 7-7 when Fleetwood had back-to-back kills, and Chandler Clark added another kill to put Seymour in front to stay.
The Owls led 16-11 and finished strong with a 9-3 run, with Fee serving an ace, and she had two kills during that rally.
For the night, the Owls had 28 kills with Pollmann getting nine, Clark six and Blevins three.
Fleetwood was the leading server by making all 20 with two aces, Fee was perfect at 16 for 16 with three aces and Cecily Coffman finished making all eight serves and led the team with 15 digs.
Birdsong said she saw improved attacking and blocking by her team.
“We worked a lot (Wednesday) after coming home from the Columbus East match, working with our blockers on points and blocks whenever our middles weren’t able to get there, and I did see our outsides and right sides doing that tonight,” she said.
Birdsong was pleased the way the Owls were moving on defense.
“We had a lot of players crossing tonight on defense to be able to pick up balls,” she said. “They also did a nice job of talking to each other, covering for each other when someone wasn’t there, so I was pleased with that as well.
“Overall, it was a good home win tonight.”
Thew Owls improved to 7-9 heading into the Franklin Invite on Saturday.