Sophomore Alyssa Valverde (left) sets up a spike in the second set.
Right off the bat freshman Alexa Chertkov felt the pressure.
“I was scared because I (had) heard (the Woodland Christian Cardinals) were a really good team,” Chertkov said.
She knew going into the game that it was going to be a tough match, but watching them warm up only intimidated the Cavs more.
This didn’t bode well for the JV girls.
They started off the game with miscommunication and a few errors, which gave the Cardinals more and more momentum.
And that is how the game continued. The Cavs fell to the Cardinals, 25-15, in the first set and 25-11 in the second.
“We weren’t communicating enough, and weren’t really moving our feet,” sophomore Anna Frankel said.
Chertkov agreed.
“The team needs to work on footwork and communication on the court,” Chertkov said. “We need to be quicker to getting to balls, and call out ‘mine’ when it’s ours.”
Freshman Naomi Cohen prepares a pass as fellow freshman Elise Sommerhaug readies herself for the ball.
Though the Cavs did have unforced errors, the opponent was simply more experienced, according to Chertkov.
“We are a new and developing team, who played a really strong opponent,” she said.
“It is good to play more experienced teams at the beginning of the season because it better prepares us for the rest of the season.”
The match wasn’t all bad news, though.
“The girls served very impressively tonight,” coach Sarah Song said.
And Chertkov praised their coach.
“We did have a lot of team spirit and were supporting each other throughout the game, even when we were pretty far behind,” Chertkov said.
The Cavs’ next game is against the Buckingham Knights on Tuesday, Sept. 19, away at 5 p.m.
—By Bri Davies
