ENTERPRISE – Local teams have endured five months of no sports activity, but that all came to an end on Monday as East Union traveled to West Union and won the season opening volleyball match 3-1. 

“Well, we were very nervous the first set and I looked at Coach (Kalicia Henderson) and said ‘you’d think it’d been six months or something since they played,'” East Union coach Josh Blythe said. “We are trying to do stuff differently and trying to do it the right way, so it’s a learning curve still for us and there’s a lot of rotations that we are trying to do. 

“We’re trying to get certain people in certain places, but at the end of the day, you are still trying to pass, set and kill it.”

West Union took the first set 25-17 and never allowed East Union to lead while there were two ties at 10-10 and 16-16. 

East Union came back to even the match with a 25-19 decision in the second set. The Lady Urchins overcame a 7-5 lead by the Lady Eagles during Abby Patterson’s service and by the time West Union was able to break the serve, Patterson had helped her team run off seven straight points to go up 12-8.

The Lady Urchins won the third set 25-15 to go ahead 2-1 in the match. Mia Hutcheson had a key service for East Union as she helped the Lady Urchins open up a six point lead and West Union could not get any closer than six for the remainder of the set. 

The fourth and final set saw East Union rush out to an early 9-1 lead as they coasted to a 25-14 decision to win the match 3-1. 

“I thought we just made a lot of mental mistakes and that’s what you expect, but they’re (West Union) a lot better too, so you’ve gotta give them props too,” Blythe said. 

East Union got key contributions from several players and Blythe singled out the play of Hope Robbins as being critical in the win. 

“We messed up a rotation and I had to have another blocker, a middle blocker, so I just threw her (Robbins) in there and she made a couple of big blocks, a couple of good kills and I’m like okay, let’s just keep going,” he said. “You’ve just got to develop some sort of consistency and I think that’s what you see with these young groups, they are learning how to play still.

“It’s just a process, you know, and my head hurts after the fact because I’m trying to figure and I’m spinning on what we’re going to do and who we are going to do it with, but they played well. It’s good just to play, I’m excited, even though we’ve got masks on, I’m just excited to play.”