NSA turns tables on Lady Knights
Published 10:08 pm Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Peninsula Catholic High School’s girls’ volleyball team is the only conference team to have defeated Nansemond-Suffolk Academy this year, but the Lady Saints avenged that loss on Tuesday night.
Instead of falling to the Lady Knights 3-1 like they did on the road on Sept. 15, the Lady Saints won 3-1 at home on Tuesday — 30-28, 25-17, 16-25, 25-19.
“The biggest difference for us was in that September match we had 86 errors in four sets, and last night, we had 39 errors in four sets,” NSA coach Robyn Ross said. “It was much, much better.”
The Lady Saints also enjoyed a great home crowd on Tuesday.
“I’ve been coaching there for six years, and that was the best student body crowd that we have ever had,” Ross said. “The students and the crowd were amazing last night, and I think that that was a big help for the girls.”
On Sept. 15, Nansemond-Suffolk lost 19-25, 25-17, 15-25, 24-26 at Peninsula Catholic, but Ross said she has been working with her team on a lot of mental aspects of the game, including staying positive when things do not go as planned.
“They’re stronger mentally now than they were,” Ross said. “You have to be to win a set 30-28.”
In that set, “PC had several more set points than we did, so that set was huge for the girls to win,” Ross said.
NSA fell in the third set due to what Ross described as “a little bit of everything” falling apart, but then it showed poise and recovered in the final set.
“They had control of that fourth set the whole time,” she said.
As for standouts, “Livi (Bono) and Lindsay (Knierbein) both had amazing nights hitting,” Ross said, as they contributed 18 kills apiece.
Knierbein had the highest hitting percentage of the night on her team, she had a strong service game with 15 points off her serve, and she also made some important defensive contributions.
Nicole Wright was stellar at the setter position, contributing a career-high 42 assists.
Nansemond-Suffolk (19-7, 4-0) visits Norfolk Christian School on Thursday evening as it continues its Tidewater Conference of Independent Schools schedule.