MCGANNON — The McDonald girls volleyball team remained undefeated on Monday, defeating LaBrae at home in straight sets (25-17, 25-20, 25-5) to improve its record to 13-0 on the 2024 season.
Despite the Blue Devils picking up a non-conference win, it was a frustrating showing for the Vikings. “ugly” The matchup will feature teams led by McDonald’s coach Mike Klockner.
“LaBrae is a well-coached team and plays a good defense, so we knew we had to be smart on offense.” Klockner said. “And we just didn’t execute the way we wanted to. Their defense did a great job of stopping us, so we were a little stumped.”
The match started off pretty competitive with both teams trading points back and forth in the first half of the opening set, but eventually things started to go wrong for Labrai.
They pulled within two, 15-13, but the Vikings scored 10 of the set’s final 14 points to give McDonald an early lead.
Lovellaie missed the second set as well, but a strong comeback, backed by a series of aces from Shelby Bragg, overcame an early deficit to take an 18-17 lead.
But McDonald finished just as strong as she did in the first set, as the Blue Devils won eight of the final 10 points in the second set to seize the match and, unfortunately for coach Courtney Kish and the Vikings, seize the momentum of the match.
“We had some moments of momentum in the second set, but then in the third set, I felt like we just couldn’t get the momentum we needed.” Kish said.
After suffering two tough sets in a row, LaBrae couldn’t muster the energy to bounce back. Instead, McDonald dominated the third set, winning all but five points to record her 13th win of the season.
“We just couldn’t get any momentum going.” “It was a tough match,” Kish said of the one-sided third set. “Volleyball is a momentum sport, so if you can’t get momentum, it’s hard to keep it going.”
Monday’s loss was the fourth for Lovellae (12-4), whose only losses have come to McDonald and Crestview, both of which are still unbeaten, and Garfield, which started the season 8-0.
Kish is hopeful his team is learning from these losses.
“The most important thing is to stay focused and be ready to execute our game plan.” Kish said. “I think sometimes they’re not always ready. … We want to learn from our losses so hopefully we can bounce back tomorrow.”
Klockner also wants his team to stay focused on everything other than their 13-0 record.
“I haven’t said anything to them. It’s one game at a time.” Klockner said: “It’s a good start. It’s a great start. But at the same time, every team we play is going to be a challenge and we have to get better every time.”
But as long as the losses stay clean and the wins keep piling up, Klockner knows McDonald is going to get the best out of opponents, and he’s tried to get that message across to his players without pointing out why.
“We have a target on our backs and every team is going to play their best.” Klockner said he told his team at a recent practice. “They’re going to come out to beat us, so we’ve got to be ready for that. We’ve got to come prepared and expect the best from each team.”
Springfield will get its next chance to hand McDonald its first loss after losing to the Blue Devils on Aug. 27. The Tigers host McDonald on Tuesday.
Labrai visits the champions today for the third of five consecutive away games.