By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

NEW MADISON — Just before tournament draw, the Lady Patriots volleyball team competed in a tournament tune-up game against a 14-6 Miami East team at home on Oct. 5. Tri-Village lost 3-0 to Miami East.

Head coach Taylor Rawlings said it was great to play a Division V school right before tournament draw. She just wanted to see more consistency from her team in this match.

“They’re a division ahead of us. It was good to play that level of competition, that level of speed going into tournaments. I think unfortunately our roller coaster came back. We would wait until we were eight points down and that was the difference in about each of those sets,” Rawlings said.

Tri-Village started behind early in the first set as they went down 7-1. After that, the Lady Patriots started to slow down the strong hits from Miami East and got into a rhythm.

Senior Lilly Camacho and sophomore Kenna Wilcox were doing all they can on the front line to keep Tri-Village in the game. Junior Camryn Osborne also had some nice serves to get the Lady Patriots back in the first set.

But, Miami East started to extend their lead late in the set and won 25-18.

Then it was all Miami East in the second set. The Lady Vikings went on a 10-0 run to start the second set and never let up. Tri-Village struggled at times on defense and on serve receive. They did string together some points to get on the board, but fell 25-12 in the second set.

It looked like more of the same in the third set as Miami East was about to coast to an easy sweep. But, the Lady Patriots fought one point at a time to make Miami East a little uncomfortable.

Camacho and junior Emma Whaley were able to find the open spots on offense. The back row was doing their job in getting the offense set up.

Tri-Village fought to get back to within single-digits of the Lady Vikings. But, it was too big of a deficit to overcome as they lost 25-16 in the final set.

Rawlings said she was proud of the team for not giving up, but she wants to see that fight from the very beginning.

“I’m proud of that fight today. But we got to take that fight from the very beginning of each set,” Rawlings said.

Tri-Village is now 11-10 with an 8-2 WOAC record. They will host Dixie on Oct. 7 at 5:30 p.m. for their final game.

Tournament draw will be on Oct. 6 as the Lady Patriots will find out where they sit in the Division VI Southwest Sectional. Rawlings said she is looking for a four seed. She hopes to find the right pieces and get the right draw to make a tournament run.

“I think there, it’s just finding our best pieces to get us a tournament run,” Rawlings said.

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