It was a frustrating evening for the Seymour volleyball team.
The Owls were swept 3-0 by Columbus North at the Lloyd E. Scott Gymnasium on Tuesday.
Owls coach Holly Birdsong said the team was having trouble getting things in sync during the match.
Birdsong said the team also has some growing pains as some players are inexperienced in some of the positions on the court.
“We’re just having a lot of trouble right now working together as a team,” she said. “We have some younger girls that are filling in on some positions that they haven’t played before and things are just not coming together yet.”
The Owls frustrations began early, dropping the first set 25-16.
The team began the match allowing six unanswered points. Birdsong took a timeout in an effort for her team to regain focus.
The timeout paid off, as the Owls were able to bring the score 7-6 following the timeout. Both teams exchanged points until the Bulldogs took a 20-16 lead. That’s when the Bulldogs scored five straight points to capture the first set 25-16.
It looked as though the Owls were going to bounce back when it took a 16-8 lead in the second set, but ended up dropping the set 25-20.
Both teams started the second set on the wrong foot, trading points on errors.
However, the Owls found an early rhythm and went up 8-4, forcing Columbus North to call a timeout after serves by Makenna Fee. Fee then scored two more points before the Bulldogs earned the ball back.
The Bulldogs were able to take a few points from the Owls before Jessica Blevins scored four points in a row to bring the score 16-8 in favor of the Owls, forcing another timeout by the Bulldogs.
That’s when the Bulldogs were able to turn things around and went on a run other own.
The Bulldogs’ junior Sophie Mckinney scored eight straight points to tie the game at 16, forcing Birdsong to take a timeout.
Both team exchanged points before the Bulldogs were able to find room and end the set on a 3-0 run.
In the final set, the Owls were simply over-powered and lost 25-14.
But the set did not begin that way.
The two teams were neck-and-neck until the score was 14-10 in favor of the Bulldogs. The team then used several runs to bury the Owls and capture the match.
Blevins led the Owls with six kills while Abby Schmidt and Fee each had two.
Fee, Blevins and Naemi Farkas each totaled two aces.
Birdsong said she was able to identify some areas where the team can improve.
“We need to work on our passing,” she said. “We weren’t pushing the ball close enough to the net for our setters to be able to run front row and we need to be able to run our offense more to just get more points.”
Birdsong said the team did have some good points to take from the evening.
“I think, overall, we had a good serving night — I mean, we do have glimmers in there where there’s good things going on,” she said. “If our sets could get up, our hitters could get a better attack on the ball.”
Birdsong reiterated that the team just needed to work together better as a unit and thinks they will get there.
“It’s just about putting it together consistently for our team,” she said. “We felt like we played together well against Jeffersonville and this was a step back, but we just have to over a few things and get back.”
The Owls (1-1) will host Madison on Saturday morning.