{"id":1045,"date":"2024-10-04T18:43:21","date_gmt":"2024-10-04T18:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=1045"},"modified":"2024-10-04T18:43:21","modified_gmt":"2024-10-04T18:43:21","slug":"mustangs-sweep-first-place-eagles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=1045","title":{"rendered":"Mustangs sweep first-place Eagles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Middletown jumps back into thick of NCL I race with win over Cloverdale<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lake County Sports on Facebook<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MIDDLETOWN >> It just goes to show what a little bit of home cooking can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Playing at the Tallman Gymnasium for the first time this season because of renovations that forced Middletown High School\u2019s varsity volleyball team to play all of its matches on the road until Thursday night, the Mustangs swept their way back into the North Central League I race with a big 25-19, 27-25, 25-23 win over the first-place Cloverdale Eagles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By beating the same Cloverdale team that beat them in three sets Sept. 10 in Cloverdale to open their league schedule, the Mustangs improved to 5-3 in the standings and moved to within 1 \u00bd games of the Eagles (7-2). Right behind Cloverdale is Kelseyville (6-2) and St. Helena (6-2) followed by Fort Bragg (5-3) and Middletown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking ahead to the remainder of the league race, several factors certainly work to the Mustangs\u2019 favor. First of all, they play all six of their remaining matches at home, including key contests against Kelseyville (next Tuesday), Fort Bragg (Oct. 15) an St. Helena (Oct. 17). Also, several of the teams currently ahead of the Mustangs in the standings play each other down the stretch, which should create for an exciting finish. One such match is St. Helena at Cloverdale next Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCaptain Makayla Mace coined our team cheer tonight, \u2018outwork,\u2019 they did that,\u201d Middletown head coach Erika Galvan said. \u201cThey hustled, played smart and aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On finally playing before the home fans, Galvan said it made all the difference in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOverall, the energy was great. We hadn\u2019t stepped inside our gym until this afternoon. Having our home gym and our fans helped push these girls to win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Galvan improved to 3-0 since taking over the team following the unexpected resignation of former head coach Norberto Quiroz on Sept. 25, and the Mustangs haven\u2019t lost a since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were moments when we would fall behind, but they fought back,\u201d Galvan said of the team\u2019s win over Cloverdale. The girls worked to read Cloverdale\u2019s offense. The biggest change was being aggressive with our serves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mia Hoogendoorn, a senior, led the team with 12 service points, of which four were aces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe was hitting the right spots tonight,\u201d Galvan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaylee Doris also gave Middletown a lift from the service line with 10 service points and four more aces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Makayla Mace, Jordyn Harbison and Isa Barnes all contributed five service points apiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCloverdale had great defense, we were hitting the ball hard, and they kept digging things up,\u201d Galvan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up front for the Mustangs, Hoogendoorn, Mace and Carly Johnson each had seven kills followed by Harley Holley with six more. Barnes, the team\u2019s sophomore setter, finished with 26 assists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIsa Barnes worked to dish out sets to every attacker,\u201d Galvan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Middletown\u2019s junior varsity squad also came away with a straight-set win, 25-22, 25-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cServing was the most important thing tonight,\u201d Galvan said. \u201cWe had fewer errors than previous games, and that kept our tempo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hannah Tribby, Emma Jones and Samantha Maccario had eight service points apiece, and Maccario had four aces. Bridget Lisenbee led the team with 13 assists while Jones and Izzi Hoogendoorn each had four kills. Tribby and Casi Padilla finished with three kills apiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelseyville, which like Cloverdale defeated Middletown in the first half of league play, visits Middletown on Tuesday. JV action begins at 5 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Middletown jumps back into thick of NCL I race with win over Cloverdale Lake County Sports on Facebook MIDDLETOWN >> It just goes to show what a little bit of home cooking can do. Playing at the Tallman Gymnasium for the first time this season because of renovations that forced Middletown High School\u2019s varsity volleyball […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,27,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1046,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions\/1046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}