High school girls volleyball: Pleasant Grove seizes momentum, defeating Mountain Ridge in 4 sets

After trading the first two sets, Pleasant Grove made somewhat comfortable work of Mountain Ridge, defeating the Sentinels in four sets 25-21, 23-25, 25-13 and 25-13.

“Mountain Ridge is a really physical team. They’re pretty hot right now so I’m glad we got to battle the way we did. We didn’t execute as well as I wanted to in the 2nd set. It’s good at the beginning of the season to face some challenges like that. We made some adjustments in the 3rd and 4th set and it really helped us. I’m proud of the girls to be able to learn and adapt as the game went on,” Pleasant Grove head coach Isa Takahashi said.

The teams went back and forth for the majority of the set, with Pleasant Grove taking the opening set off a block at the net by Taytum Nelson.

In a tightly contested second set and one that had several lead changes throughout, Mountain Ridge found a way to get the better of Pleasant Grove to even the match up at a set a piece.

Down 12-13 midway through the second set, Pleasant Grove went on a run thanks to the service from Kaitlin Stadler. Stadler served the ball well, scoring five straight points to give the home side the advantage at 17-13. That lead was short lived as Mountain Ridge answered right back with some quality serves of their own thanks to Lizzy Brooks.

Pleasant Grove didn’t look like themselves in the second set, committing unforced errors that allowed Mountain Ridge back into the match. Takahashi was proud of the way his team responded to the various challenges that Mountain Ridge provided as the match went on.

In the third set, Pleasant Grove took over and overpowered Mountain Ridge, going on a 13-5 run to close out the set, and once again it was Nelson who provided the set clinching point, this time with a spike that Mountain Ridge was unable to handle.

“The main thing is we shut down their biggest hitters. We served a little tougher and at the same time we capitalized on their biggest hitters not being perfect. They are still going to score because they are so athletic, but we wanted to try to make other players beat us and we were more successful in that situation and we did a good job of doing that,” added Takahashi.

Pleasant Grove was able to carry that momentum into the fourth set and ultimately ran away with the victory. While his team may still be undefeated in the young season, Takahashi knows there is still plenty of room for growth and improvement from his side.

“I think it was more of a really big team effort more than anything. I’m really proud of all of them,” he said. “Everyone did all of their roles and jobs that we asked. As their coach I am really proud of them. I do think we have room for growth. I don’t think we have been passing that great yet. We can do better on our passing and hitting wise I don’t think that we have been very efficient. I think we made too many errors on balls we could have got points from.”