Toronto continues strong start, sweeps Panthers
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CONNORVILLE -- The Toronto volleyball team is once again off to a strong start to the season.
After starting last season with five-straight wins on the way to a 20-win season, the Red Knights won their fourth-straight to start this season with a sweep of Buckeye Local on the road Monday evening, 25-21, 25-12, 25-15.
"We have six seniors, and they are good leaders, and we have some underclassmen that are stepping up," Toronto head coach Lori Lynn Jackson said. "We are playing solid all the way around."
The win not only keeps the Knights undefeated, but also comes against a bigger school, which will be valuable in the OVAC standings.
"It's a big help … we don't play as many bigger schools to get points this year," Jackson said. "We're getting the points we can, we got a win over Weir (last week), we got the win (Monday night). We're doing what we can."
Toronto's start was not what Jackson hoped for, but the Knights took the first set, got rolling in the second and closed things out when pushed in the third.
"We seem to be struggling to get going a little bit in our first sets, but once we get going, we get some confidence and do a good job of staying solid the rest of the match," Jackson said. "I thought we started a little slow (Monday) … Mondays can be a little rough after a weekend, getting back to the grind. But, again, once the girls got going, they played well. Maybe it wasn't our best performance, we made some mistakes, but we got it done."
For the Panthers (0-4), though the result wasn't what they had hoped, coach Mary Kay Mayle saw some positives.
"Toronto is a good team, they've got some strong players," Mayle said. "We missed too many serves, we have some stuff to work on, but we did some other stuff really well. I thought we did a good job on (Toronto's Hannah Dobbs), she still got her hits, she's a good player and you're not going to completely stop her, but we did a better job than we did against her before.
"But I look at the sheet and see a lot of service errors. That kind of stuff hurt us. We have a couple practices before we play again so we're going to work on some of that stuff.
"Overall, I thought we did good, we knew Toronto was going to be a test. Even when we were down in the third set, we got back within four or five before they were able to put it away so the girls don't quit."
Her squad is trying to find its rhythm with a couple injuries shaking things up.
"We have a few injuries right now, we had a girl come back from one injury and roll her ankle tonight, and we don't have Pam (Kandrach)," Mayle said. "We're hoping to get her back next week, and she makes a big difference. She's a four-year starter.
"We've got some good players, they're just trying to learn to play as a team right now. They're showing up and staying positive, they're trying to learn how to play together and win and it is still early."
For the Red Knights, Hannah Dobbs had 18 kills and seven digs, Andrea Reeves dished out 32 assists, had eight digs and two kills, Ashton Thomas collected seven kills, five blocks and two digs, Michelle Anderson tallied 21 digs and two aces, Jayna Reeves registered six kills and three blocks, Tatum Derrington had three kills and five blocks, Callie Anderson had four kills, Gracee Rex registered eight digs and Riley Fisher finished with 12 digs and three aces.
For the Panthers, Sam Ankrom had nine digs and an ace, Alyssa Dailey had two aces, a kill and 11 digs and Shayleigh Hornyak had five kills and seven blocks.
UP NEXT
Toronto: Travels to Conotton Valley on Thursday.
Buckeye Local: Is also on the road Thursday at Linsly.