Riverside Academy, parish finish busy volleyball week
Published 12:03 am Saturday, September 19, 2015
RESERVE — Riverside Academy Lady Rebels volleyball players have seen a huge turnaround in the past two weeks.
After getting off to a 1-3 start, the Lady Rebels have gone on a nine-game winning streak to improve to 10-3. The streak included wins over tough programs, including Ascension.
Riverside recently notched a 3-2 nail-biter win over St. Thomas Aquinas, in which RA won the first two sets by scores of 25-21 and 25-22, lost the second two sets 26-24 and 25-21 before taking the victory in the third set 15-5.
Head coach Margot Frederick is glad her team, although the favorites to win the match, kept themselves close and did not let the score get out of hand.
“We were probably the superior athletic team and they probably outplayed us,” Frederick said. “They put more effort in to the match and kind of chipped away at us. In the third or fourth set, we had four or five match points and couldn’t close it out.”
Sophomore setter Abby Bourgeois was instrumental in the Lady Rebels’ victory by bringing her team back from being down four points in the final set.
“Bourgeois came back and served the next 15 consecutive points, and we didn’t commit an error the entire fifth set,” Frederick said. “It went from being pretty ugly to being pretty great in the end. I guess it is not how you start but how you finish.” Frederick said the situation they found themselves in was likely due to overconfidence.
“We saw their warm-up and we didn’t respect them enough, and that is probably why we got into the situation we got into,” Frederick said.
Briley Becker finished with 17 kills, Maddie Duhon had 16 digs, Bourgeois had 42 assists and seven aces and Sydney Joseph had 15 kills.
On Thursday, the Lady Rebels went on to defeat Newman and Thibodaux in tournament play. Against Newman, the Lady Rebels gave up the first set 25-21 but came back in the last two to win 25-21 and 15-9.
They followed that up with two straight wining sets of 25-23 and 25-21 against Thibodaux.
“These were great wins for our program,” Frederick said. “The kids were composed and eliminated several deficits in both matches by earning points. We had unrivaled energy and we are certainly a team with a lot of personality. This team is fun to be around.”
St. Charles Catholic
The St. Charles Catholic Lady Comets split the week with one win and one loss to bring their record to 5-6.
On Monday, the Lady Comets lost in three sets versus Academy of Our Lady.
“We played tired,” head coach Meghan Ericksen said. “I think having a Monday game got us out of our routine, and we didn’t play up to where we normally do.”
But on Thursday St. Charles Catholic came back with a big win over East St. John.
Ericksen said while East St. John has good athletes and is the much larger school, her girls were able to beat them in three without giving up a set.
“They are a really tough team, they tried to stay in it the entire time and they gave us a run every single game,” Ericksen said. “We were able to stick together on it.”
Ericksen said she was very aware of the skill on East St. John’s team before St. Charles Catholic faced them and made sure to give directed training to her players prior to the game.
Ericksen said she hopes to further refine her team’s approach to games.
“We really need to stay focused on our own game and winning points,” Ericksen said.
Lela Hill led the team with eight kills, Maddie Murphy had 17 assists and Alyssa Arceneaux had 28 digs.
East St. John
The East St. John Lady Wildcats had mixed results this week.
Staring off with a tournament, the Lady Wildcats defeated Baton Rouge Magnet High School and Plaquemine in back-to-back games but were unable to keep the momentum going. To finish out the tournament, East St. John dropped two straight to Terrebonne and Woodline.
Returning to their home gym, they lost in three straight sets to St. Charles Catholic Thursday to bring their record to 7-11.
“Every time I step off the court I have coaches say the same thing, ‘Coach, you are really the better team,’” East St. John head coach Chelsey Lucas-Nicholas said. “We are the better team. We’ve just got to find a way. We get up and have mental breakdowns that allowed the other team to come back. Once you allow a team that momentum, it is kind of hard to get that momentum back.”
Lucas-Nicholas is in her first year at East St. John after spending a number of successful seasons at Riverside Academy.
“Individually we have some people that are growing,” Lucas-Nicholas said. “Together, I would love to see some more progress as a tram. Mentally, we make more mistakes and beak down mentally. At the end of the day, we were the better team but we weren’t mentally strong.”
Lucas-Nicholas said other players coming into the program for the first year from other sports are still learning.
“I have a bunch of girls from out of the sport who are playing for us,” Lucas-Nicholas said. “I have a girl from basketball and a girls from different sports. They wanted to try something new, and they love what they are doing. It is just them having to be consistent.”
The Lady Wildcats have a busy schedule to end September with four games and three tournaments.
Lucas-Nicholas said going into that stretch her girls are going to work on one thing — being consistent.
“We have the basics and we have the skill,” Lucas-Nicholas said. “We went through a summer where we just learned technique. They have everything they need. It is just coming together and mastering that skill and being consistent with that skill. We are going to be working on being consistent with our skill level.”