Volleyball poaches the Jaguars

Blair defeated a talented Northwest High School team on Oct 24, struggling early on but pulling it together to easily take the match three games to one. The win improved the Blazers to 11-2 and put them in third place in their division.

Despite the easy victory, Blair did not play its best. The Blazers could not establish a consistent serving game, hitting hard but inaccurately. Blair also showed an inability to handle tuff serves from the bigger more powerful Jaguars. However, their talent for keeping the ball alive and setting up and executing a consistent spiking game kept Blair close and eventually helped them run away with the match.

Junior Amanda Hsiung had another impressive game, contributing numerous spikes and providing Blair with much of its offense. Junior Becca Cho also had one of her best games of the year, playing great defense and coming up with momentum swinging digs and saves.

The first game saw Blair jump out to an early lead, but lose it after a Northwest mounted a furious serving attack. The accurate, hard hits put Blair in the whole. Only after the combined spiking efforts of juniors Lauren Wong and Emily Ramsay and senior Jeanne Yang could the Blazers come back and take the game 17-15.

Blair grabbed the early lead once more, and again saw it fall to the determined and powerful Jaguars. However, this time the Blazers fell apart, failing to return serves and set up spikes. Northwest easily took the game 4-15.

A more focused Blair team took the court in the third game, again grabbing the early lead. This time they would not forfeit the advantage, turning to Hsiung and Yang to spike their way to a 15-8 victory.

Hsiung dominated the fourth game. She contributed massive spikes and impressive digs, helping Blair to win the game easily 15-2 and take the match 3-1.

Junior Carey Bartlett, who will be sidelined with an injured knee for the rest of the season, observed a real lack of determination and cohesiveness on the court. "We lost our focus in the second game. One person started slipping and everyone else followed. It took the whole team, the people playing and the people on the bench to pull it back together," she said.

Coach Anne Garrison believes that in order to be completely ready for the playoffs the team needs to work on serving, serve receiving and knowing where each player needs to be on the court.