By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
NORMAN – Giving the fans their money’s worth.
That’s the first thing Yukon head coach Rachel Hilton said after her Millerettes came away with a 3-2 win over Norman in the Central Oklahoma Athletic Conference volleyball match Monday in Norman.
The Millerettes led 2-1 in sets, but saw Norman rally in the fourth set to take a 25-18 win and force a fifth a deciding set.
YHS, leading 12-10, used kills from Vanessa Stanley, Kiley Baker and Taya McReynolds to seal the fifth set in.
“Monday games are always a whole different animal, you never know what you are going to get,” Hilton said. “We got a little comfortable in the second set, then got down on ourselves once they got up. So, third set we talked about we were still in control, know how we wanted to play and are still the better team and so we picked it up.
“The fourth set turned back into the second set,” she said. “We had the story of two teams. We were a little flat-footed in the fourth set, we got quite and lost our energy. When we lose our energy, it is hard for us to keep the momentum going.
“Our serve receive was great all night, our service game was not great, we missed on some key serves that broke down the momentum a few times. We let some call get into our head, but in the end when we got down to the fifth set, we came out and fought, focused and finished when we needed to.”
The Millerettes won the first set 25-19, lost 25-20 in the second, won the third 25-19, lost the fourth 25-18 and took the fifth 15-11.
The fifth set was back and forth and Yukon took control on a McReynolds kill, a Norman hit out of bounds and a Lady Tiger foul for grabbing the net, 11-8.
Norman did come back to make it 12-10, but a Kill from Stanley opened a 13-10 lead and a Baker kill made it 14-11. On match point, McReynolds drilled a kill down the line to seal the win.
The match was close all night long. Just when it looked like the Millerettes were going to take control of a set, Norman would rally back until the late stages. 25-18 win.
The first set was back and forth until a Stanley kill put YHS up 20-17. Jasmine Liongco had an ace to make it 22-19 and a McReynolds kill opened a 24-19 lead. Liongco had her second ace to seal the win.
In the second set, Norman pulled away in the late stages to take a 25-20 win and in the third, the Millerettes had a chance to put the match away, but saw Norman rally and make it close.
Yukon led 19-14, but Norman came back to close to 22-18. A McReynolds kill and a Norman hit into the net gave Yukon a 25-18 win.
“We made some great plays at times, then made some silly mistakes, or miscommunication mistakes that would let Norman back in,” Hilton said. “A lot of our hustle in controlled, but at times the hustle saw everyone all over the place and that is when the self-inflicted errors come in.
“We had to have a lot of hustle plays and there were a lot of long rallies,” she said. “We stayed in attack mode in those long rallies and that reall helped. The temptation is once you have gone for a long time in one of those, you start playing safe, but we stayed aggressive.”
The Millerettes will host Edmond North in the final regular season match and will begin regional play the following week. YHS will more likely head to the Edmond Memorial regional.
