The McAuley Catholic Warriors dropped their third straight match in straight sets with a 3-0 loss (25-11, 25-20, 25-18) on Monday against the visiting Providence Academy Patriots.
All three losses were at home with 18-win Golden City and 18-win College Heights preceding the Patriots from Rogers, Arkansas.
“It definitely wasn’t pretty,” McAuley Catholic coach Sarah Nangle said. “I just don’t think we did our best. We’re still struggling right now with new positions and maybe a little bit of a lack of confidence where we’re playing at on the court. We’ve been struggling with passing lately and we’ve been working on it in practice but it’s not transferring over to games the last couple times. We’re a little frustrated.
“Hopefully, tomorrow night we play on the road at Exeter, maybe we can get some more confidence and play them competitively. We still know our season’s not over with, but we definitely want to end on a more positive note and a fighting chance. We don’t like having three-set games. We’re not giving our competitors much and we’re not fighting for it as much as we could.”
McAuley Catholic enters Tuesday’s match against one-win Exeter at 18-13-2 overall and the Warriors have a great shot at reaching 20 wins before the district tournament starts Oct. 20 against Sheldon.
The Warriors play consecutive matches against Exeter and fellow one-win Southwest.
Senior setter Lily Black led McAuley Catholic with four kills and eight assists Monday, junior Kloee Williamson added three kills, senior libero JoJo Wheeler made 11 digs, and sophomore Jadyn LaFerla finished with two blocks.
McAuley Catholic led early on in the first set Monday, but Providence Academy turned a 10-7 score into a commanding 21-7 advantage late in the set. The Patriots had multiple kills and three aces during that decisive 11-0 run.
McAuley Catholic fought hardest in the second set and trailed 22-20 before Providence Academy closed out the set with the last three points.
Providence Academy went ahead 14-6 in the third set and McAuley Catholic scored four straight points to cut it to 21-16 but the Patriots scored four of the final six points to end it.
Providence Academy defeated McAuley Catholic in two sets in tournament play earlier this season.
