It was like eagerly putting your favorite pasta to boil in a big pot and . . .
Wait for it.
Wait for it.
Goodness,
will it ever get done?
Not as
quickly as you want.
In the
opening game of their non-region volleyball match against visiting Peoria
Liberty on Thursday night (Oct. 7), Xavier Prep’s Gators had to wait to bring
their game to a boil. You know what they say about watched pots.
Xavier
trailed 18-17 and couldn’t seem to get much consistency against the Lions. But
things began to boil for the Gators and they scored the final eight points of
the game for a 25-18 victory.
The momentum
carried over to the next two games, Xavier winning both by identical 25-22
scores to sweep the match 3-0. It was the second sweep in as many nights for
XCP, which defeated Phoenix Sunnyslope on Wednesday night (Oct. 6).
Xavier
raised its overall record to 19-7 while rising from seventh place to fifth in
Friday’s (Oct. 8) Arizona Interscholastic Association rankings, swapping places
with Liberty (12-7) which dropped from fifth to seventh.
“This was a
big match for us,’’ said Xavier Coach Lamar-Renee Bryant. “They were ahead of
us in power points and we had to get some more because we still have some tough
region matches (6A Premier) coming up.’’
The teams
played back and forth in the second game. A kill shot by Liberty gave the Lions
a 22-21 lead, but Xavier came back with four straight points to seal it, including
a kill by senior outside hitter Emma Soderstrom, a service ace by senior setter
Alexa Shiner, a key point off another serve by Shiner, then a blocked shot.
Xavier led
by nine points early in the third game, but Liberty, looking more athletic than
Sunnyslope, got as close as 24-22 after a Xavier block went out of bounds, but
a kill by Soderstrom put the match away.
The Gators
have two more matches on back-to-back nights next week – on Wednesday (Oct. 13)
at Chandler Basha and Thursday (Oct. 14) at home against Chandler High.
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