The Washington Lady Lions high school volleyball teams played their first matches of the 2021 season Wednesday, Aug. 25 in their home gym.
Former South Central Ohio League opponent East Clinton visited and came away with a sweep of the freshman, junior-varsity and varsity matches.
The Astros won the varsity match in three sets, 25-20, 25-23 and 26-24.
For Washington, Aaralyne Estep had five ace serves; Kassidy Olsson had two aces; Estep, Olsson and Calleigh Wead-Salmi tied with four kills; Olivia Wayne had 10 assists; Estep led with 12 digs.
“East Clinton came out swinging,” Washington head coach Ashley DeAtley said. “They have some scrappy players, which, I think, we didn’t expect, so we kind of started off a little slow and it took us a while to get back in our groove.
“We’re missing a couple of our players, so, we had to move some people around,” DeAtley said. “We were trying to make some changes in order to take away (East Clinton’s) number 22, she was a really strong hitter. She took us out of our defense a couple of times with her blocking.
“Overall, I thought our tempo was pretty good,” DeAtley said. “There were a lot of balls that we got up that people weren’t expecting. We also lost the ball a couple of times in tracking the ball down, so, that is something we are definitely going to work on.
“We missed too many serves tonight at crucial times,” DeAtley said. “That really cost us at times. But, our girls fought. They were fighting through everything. They were trying to put the ball in places that East Clinton wasn’t, but, East Clinton was picking up a lot of stuff, so it was really tough getting balls down.
“Maggi Wall did a great job,” DeAtley said of Washington’s freshman libero. “Aaralyne (Estep) is transitioning now from libero to the outside, so, she’s hitting for us.”
“Unfortunately, we came up short,” DeAtley said. “We’ll get back in the gym and keep working at it.”
East Clinton won the freshman match, 25-20, 25-14 and the Astros won the j-v match, 25-13, 25-19.
Washington is scheduled to play at Jackson Tuesday.
