By Drew Terhall

DailyAdvocate.com

ANSONIA — The Ansonia volleyball team swept Bradford, 3-0, on Sept. 12 in a well-played match by both teams. Ansonia came into this game playing four games since this past weekend.

Head coach Lydia Schlarman said the long weekend of volleyball and not having a break made for a tiring couple of days. But, they didn’t stop the team from getting back a few players and playing with high energy.

“We got our full team back tonight, just working around that. Practices not having your full team kind of makes it hard and then come into a game and using those girls. They really pulled through tonight. They’re energy was much better tonight as well,” Schlarman said.

Bradford was coming off a win over Northridge on Sept. 9 and coming off a good game against National Trail that went five sets.

Head coach Alisha Patty said they felt like they had some momentum coming into this game. While the result was not what they wanted, the team still played great against a tough team.

“My girls played pretty well today. We had a lot of good volleys and we played with them for a lot of the game. Certain servers got the best of us. Certain rotations, you have better connections in some,” Patty said.

It was an up and down first set for Bradford. Ansonia started off hot and jumped out to a big lead early. It took time for the Lady Railroaders to settle in.

In the middle of the set, Bradford started to cut into the Ansonia lead and played up to Ansonia’s level. In the end, the Lady Tigers pulled away with a 25-11 win in set one.

The last two sets started off close. Bradford started to make more plays early on in the set to keep them in the match. They were able to do enough on serve receive to move the ball around and keep volleys going.

Once the Tigers were able to get a kill or get the serve back, their servers started to take over the set late. Schlarman said it’s noticeable in their scores during the season when they are serving well and when they are struggling serving.

“You can tell when we’re on and when we’re off. That totally makes a difference with our scores as well, as you can see,” Schlarman said.

Ansonia took the second set, 25-13. Bradford was able to stay in the third set for awhile, but fell 25-15.

Patty said they knew Ansonia was going to be a tough team after seeing them at the Greenville Federal Invite and with them having a lot of returning players. She felt the team rose to the occasion and kept their positive momentum going after this one.

“We knew coming in they have hard hitters and they would work to hit where we’re not. I’m really proud of my girls. We got a lot of balls up that normally we don’t. We just have to move our feet a little bit more and keep that momentum and keep going for the second half of the season,” Patty said.

Bradford is 1-11 on the season with a 0-4 conference record. They will host Tri-County North on Sept. 14 with JV starting at 5:30 p.m.

Ansonia is 6-5 on the season with a 3-1 conference record. They will travel to Twin Valley South on Sept. 14.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]