Mati Mateer’s 14 aces, 34 kills led team at Los Medanos College
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PITTSBURG >> The Never Say Die 18s club volleyball team started strong and finished with a 3-1 record during tournament play Sunday at Los Medanos College in Pittsburg where their only loss came in three sets.
“The girls started strong and came out ready to go on defense,” Never Say Die head coach Marci Psalmonds said. “Their serve receive was great and we were on autopilot the first two matches.”
NSD beat Pulse 25-15, 25-18 and Infinite 21-25, 25-17. T-Street beat NSD 25-14, 22-25, 15-13 in the team’s third match.
“We struggled a lot on serve receive and we couldn’t dig ourselves out of it,” Psalmonds said. “Once we got into the rally, we were fine and kept the other team on its heels, we just needed some more good passes to start it all off.”
NSD recovered to win its final match, beating Lakas 25-21, 25-15.
“We bounced back and got our last win of the day,” Psalmonds said. “AJ (Wurm) hustled her butt off the whole day and saved us a lot. She is definitely our energizer bunny. Mati (Mateer) was a beast at the service line and caused havoc for the other teams.”
Mateer led the Knights both in aces (14) and kills (34). Carly Johnson added 26 kills and seven blocks while Triniti Kuecker had 16 kills. NSD had 131 digs overall.
Next up for the NSD 18s is the league championship Saturday and Sunday at the Capital Sports Center in Sacramento.
