Meeting the challenge
At coach’s urging, Mustangs crank up defense to net win
Marriotts Ridge coach Jamie Bullock pulled aside libero Meghan Kwon and outside hitter Julia Mamo to challenge them.
The Mustangs’ strength became a weakness in their lone loss of the year to Mount Hebron on Oct. 14. And facing a young but talented Reservoir team Tuesday night on its senior night in Fulton, a similar defensive effort wouldn’t be good enough to win.
“I told them, ‘Guys, we’ve got to play better defense. I need the two of you to play better defense,’ ” Bullock said. “[I] just told them they’ve got to talk to each other. And the two of them had an excellent night. It was the defense that kept us in it.”
No. 11 Marriotts Ridge kept the Gators’ power at bay and swept them in three sets — 25-9, 25-21, 25-14. With just one match left in the regular season, the Mustangs (12-1, 9-1 Howard County) still have a shot at sharing the county championship with Mount
Hebron if they beat Centennial and the Vikings fall to Glenelg.
“I’m very pleased with them tonight,” Bullock said. “We have been practicing our defense ever since that Mount Hebron game. We’ve been really working on it. ... If we didn’t pick that up I didn’t know what was going to happen the rest of the season.”
Marriotts Ridge played a nearly flawless first set. Bullock called it “shocking because I know how good Reservoir is.”
The Mustangs won the first seven points, and though the Gators answered with a 4-0 run, the visiting team punched right back and won the next eight to take a 15-4 lead. It closed on an 8-2 run.
Reservoir (9-4, 6-4) took a 9-5 advantage in the second set, but once Marriotts Ridge closed the gap the two teams battled back and forth until the final point. An ace by freshman Mayah Tucker got the Gators within a point at 22-21, but the Mustangs again stepped up defensively to win the final three points, the last two coming on a Rachel George block and Rheign Davis ace.
Reservoir coach Carole Ferrante echoed a similar sentiment to the one she had after her team was swept by Glenelg on Oct. 15.
Going for the “really big play” cost them several winnable points and was the difference in the second set.
“We also have to learn when to just make the smart play,” Ferrante said. “That’s just part of growing and learning as a team. … I think the excitement of wanting to get that big power kill, sometimes you take it a little bit too far and make those small mistakes.”
The third set mirrored the first. Marriotts Ridge jumped out to a 7-1 lead and Reservoir climbed back in with a 6-0 run, but the Mustangs well-rounded offense was too much to slow down. Runs of 4-0 and 5-0 put them up 18-10, and they closed it out with another 4-0 run that included one of five aces by Mamo, who also finished with seven kills and 10 digs.
Freshman Rhisen Davis had multiple kills in each set and tied Mamo with seven, while Rheign Davis and Katie Trenchard each had five. Junior setter Brenna O’Reilly doled out 20 assists to go with her 13 digs. Kwon answered her coach’s challenge and led the team with 18 digs and added four assists.
For the Gators, Tucker had seven kills, Browne had five and Jazmyn Cooper four.