Sports
Ace Nation: Buckeyes’ endurance lifts them past Belpre for a 3-0 sweep
< < Back to ?p=299505NELSONVILLE, Ohio (WOUB) – The Nelsonville-York Buckeyes hosted the Belpre Golden Eagles on Wednesday night for a cross division matchup. The Buckeyes came into this game 6-1, winning their last four games, and hoped to make it five in a row. They did just that, sweeping the Golden Eagles 3-0 in Ben Wagner Gymnasium.
After the teams traded points to begin the first set, senior Chloe Lehman led the Buckeyes with three aces to get ahead 8-3. After Nelsonville-York took a 16-7 lead, junior Kyleigh Warren led the Buckeyes with four aces in a row. The Buckeyes closed out the first set winning 25-9.
After a strong opening, the Buckeyes had all the momentum going into the second set. Strong defense from Belpre kept them in the set early, with Nelsonville-York leading 7-4 going into the first timeout. However, the Golden Eagles front line couldn’t keep up with the Buckeyes’ net coverage. The Nelsonville-York closed out the set on an 18-4 run, winning 25-8.
The third set began just like the first two, with Nelsonville-York jumping out to an early 9-5. However, Belpre took two points in a row going into a timeout down just 9-7. Nelsonville-York Coach Wayne Dicken took an advantage of a timeout called by Belpre, telling his girls to relax. “I just told them to take a deep breath. A lot of times it’s just us getting in our own heads… The girls luckily came out of that timeout with a lot of energy and luckily took control.” Kills from junior Gianna Dixon and Warren helped the Buckeyes close out Belpre, winning the final set 25-12.
Precision played a huge role for Nelsonville-York, as they tallied 13 aces. Coach Dicken acknowledged the Buckeyes target practice tonight: “We feel like one of our strengths is our serving for sure, we do tend to make some serving errors but were willing to risk making errors with the number of aces that we get out of it.”
Nelsonville-York plays their third and final of game of the week Thursday night against the Wellston Golden Rockets. Although a non-conference matchup, Coach Dicken knows the importance of the matchup. “It’s a league game and we are defending league champions, so we know we have that target on our back every time we come out.”
The Golden Eagles travel to Eastern for a conference matchup against the Eagles on Thursday night.