Not surprisingly, the Carson and Douglas high school volleyball teams battled each other right to the wire on Tuesday night.
And when all was said and done, the unbeaten Carson Senators came out on top in a five-set, 2-hour struggle on their home Morse Burley Gymnasium court between the first- and second-place Northern 4A Sierra League clubs.
Carson, now 9-0, stormed back to take the final two games from Douglas and win the match 15-6, 12-15, 14-16, 15-11, 15-12.
"It was a good match, just like I knew it would be. I think both teams are pretty even," Carson coach Daryl James said. "I was real proud of the kids. We scraped, battled and worked hard at the end."
Douglas coach Scott Akimoto paid tribute to the Senators afterward.
Carson played really well," Akimoto said after watching his Tigers slip to 7-2 in league. "That's a very athletic team. They've got Kaitlin (Leck), but they've got a lot of other kids who are playing real well, too."
Both sides had their standouts.
Leck produced 21 kills for the Senators. Jennifer Saunders was another force at the net with eight kills and 15 blocks. Rachael DeRiemer had 12 kills and nine blocks, while Megan Anderson added nine kills and eight blocks. And senior setter Ryanne Amodei handed out 50 assists and served up four aces.
For Douglas, Chelsea Myers produced 21 kills and 12 digs. Emily Haas was another all-around standout with 13 kills, 11 blocks, nine digs and two aces. Megan Brinkmeyer had eight kills and Jencie LeJeune eight blocks. And senior setter Jamie McCreary was credited with 48 assists and eight digs.
The two arch rivals went back and forth from the start. Carson erased an early 6-1 deficit and reeled off 14 unanswered points to win the first set. Douglas jumped out to a 10-3 lead in the second set but had to turn back a comeback by the Senators before Brinkmeyer closed out the game with a kill.
Amodei opened Game 3 with three straight aces to give Carson a 3-0 lead, but the score was tied seven times before Haas and Nicole Weber put down a block to give Douglas the 16-14 win - and a one-game advantage in the match.
Game 4 was more of the same, only this time, Carson started fast. Katie Dill's save at the net led to a Douglas error that gave the Senators a 9-2 lead. Then Amodei put down a block to make it 10-2. But Douglas rallied back to within 12-11 before the Senators closed it out with three successive points - two on aces by Dill and one on a Leck block.
The fifth set saw five lead changes, but the Tigers hurt themselves at the end by hitting one ball out, another into the net, and finally, a serve into the net.
"I think we only served one serve out in that last game, which is a big key in rally scoring," James said. "That and I think they got into a little trouble with their ball handling; maybe that was a tribute to our serves, maybe it wasn't.
"I just thought we passed a little bit better than they did in the games we won, and that was probably the key," James went on. "That's the whole ball game - that's this sport - it's pass and serve, and passing free balls. When you pass the ball, you can run the offense the way you want to run. It's that simple."
Akimoto echoed that.
"They didn't make any unforced errors like we did. We served a bunch of balls in the net and hit a bunch of balls in the net," he said. "We just got to go back in the gym and start serving tougher and start doing all the normal stuff again and see what happens from there."
Expect another close battle when these two teams meet to end the regular season on Oct. 26 in Minden. Don't be surprised if the rivalry extends into the postseason, either.
"Scotty does a great job with those guys," James said. "That's a good, good, good volleyball team, and I think we are, too."
