Big Red bounces back, sweeps Edison
Andrew Grimm BLOCKING — Big Red's Addy Snyder and Terionah Thompson look to block an attempt from Edison's Mimi Ault during Thursday's match.
Andrew Grimm HITTING — Edison's Graclynn Dray goes up to hit past Big Red's Phynyx Fleming and A'rya Bigsby.
Andrew Grimm GOING UP — Big Red's Terionah Thompson and A'rya Bigsby block an attempt from Edison's Graclynn Dray.
Andrew Grimm UP HIGH — Edison's Aliya Glover goes up for an attempt against Big Red.
Andrew Grimm SWING — Big Red's Terionah Thompson attempts to get the ball past Edison's Graclynn Dray and Alexis Pruitt.
Andrew Grimm BLOCKING — Big Red's Addy Snyder and Terionah Thompson look to block an attempt from Edison's Mimi Ault during Thursday's match.
Andrew Grimm HITTING — Edison's Graclynn Dray goes up to hit past Big Red's Phynyx Fleming and A'rya Bigsby.
Andrew Grimm GOING UP — Big Red's Terionah Thompson and A'rya Bigsby block an attempt from Edison's Graclynn Dray.
Andrew Grimm UP HIGH — Edison's Aliya Glover goes up for an attempt against Big Red.
Andrew Grimm SWING — Big Red's Terionah Thompson attempts to get the ball past Edison's Graclynn Dray and Alexis Pruitt.
Trending
RICHMOND -- The Big Red volleyball team showed off a couple of the qualities it has been working on this season Thursday night at Edison -- the ability to bounce back, and the ability to finish.
Steubenville came out swinging, putting a tough five-set loss to Wheeling Central Tuesday in the rear view in a hurry with a fast start. Then, after the Wildcats had put together a strong third set looking to avoid a sweep, Big Red came storming back and closed the show.
The end result was a 25-12, 25-16, 26-24 victory for the visitors.
"That's something this group is very good at, they don't get rattled," Big Red head coach Logan Colabella said. "They're going to keep fighting, they don't quit. We could have easily just moved on to the fourth set when we were down eight points, but they don't do that. They locked back in and got it done. I'm proud of them for that.
"They showed that desire to finish it and that is something maybe in the past we have struggled with, but not this group. They have found it.
"Getting off to a fast start was really big, too. We had a tough match with a really good Wheeling Central team the other night and we feel like we're a really good team, too. They worked on fixing some things after that and it showed with the fast start in the first two sets."
For the Wildcats (4-7), they started to find their game and got better as the match went on, but started to put it together a little too late.
"It was a little too little, too late," Edison head coach Leah Eft said. "We knew coming in Steubenville is a good team, and we still have a lot of growing we have to do. After our last couple of games we needed to mix some things up and that's what we did in the first set, in the second set they started to answer the call so that was very positive.
"Tonight was not a loss in our minds because we learned a lot and got better. I tell them we win or we learn, and we did a lot of learning tonight."
In the opening set, Big Red scored six of the first seven points and never looked back on the way to taking a 1-0 lead in the match.
In the second set, Edison hung tough early and even went on a 6-1 run to take the lead, but Big Red regained the momentum and rattled off seven of the next eight, then later rattled off an 8-0 run on the way to a 25-16 set win and a 2-0 lead in the match.
In the third set, it was the Wildcats getting off to a fast start, opening a 6-1 lead and then going on an 8-1 run after Big Red had pushed back to go up 15-7. Big Red responded with a 7-2 run and slowly clawed back. After a timeout with Edison leading 21-17, Steubenville went on to finish on a 9-3 run, fending off a set point and scoring the final four-straight to finish the sweep.
For Big Red, Atya Bigsby tallied eight kills, a block and a dig, Aubrey Slussar recorded 16 assists, three aces and four digs, Phynyx Fleming tallied five kills and two blocks, Addy Snyder recorded seven kills, three blocks and an ace, Kaylee Sustik netted eight digs, two assists and an ace and Terionah Thompson had three kills and three blocks.
For the Wildcats. Aliya Glover tallied three blocks and seven kills, Mimi Ault, Alexis Pruitt and Gracie Dray each recorded a block, Mariah Leake tallied seven points and Dray and Pruitt each recorded four points.
UP NEXT
Big Red: Visits Indian Creek on Saturday. Steubenville won the first meeting early in the season in five sets.
Edison: Travels to Indian Creek on Tuesday looking for a season sweep after winning a five set battle with their Route 43 rivals earlier in the season.