MOSHEIM — The West Greene Lady Buffaloes volleyball team's comeback bid against the Heritage Lady Eagles fell short 22-25, 22-25, 26-24, 25-18, 15-9 on Monday.
The final set was neck and neck before Heritage pulled ahead with five unanswered points to hand West Greene its first loss of the season.
“I thought they fought back hard,” said West Greene coach Raven Borie, whose Lady Buffs drop to 2-1. “I thought they did a good job of fighting to make it a five set game instead of a sweep. Definitely have some things to work on. It’s a good learning experience and it’s still early in the season.”
The Lady Buffs looked sluggish in their first two sets with Borie saying the serving and passing was not up to the standard it should have been.
“It makes it difficult to run our offense when we can’t get good passes,” she said.
Heritage built a 14-8 lead in the first set before the Lady Buffs scored four straight points, including a kill from Cassidy Hill and an ace from Morgan Brown, to pull within 14-12.
West Greene never took the lead but kept it close before Heritage took the first set 25-22.
West Greene fell behind 17-9 and 20-13 in the second set. The Lady Buffs found a bit of energy, enough to score nine points in quick succession to close the gap to 24-22.
Lyla Ellison, though, gave Heritage another 25-22 win with a perfectly placed tap.
In the third set, the Lady Buffs started connecting on passes, serving aces and getting kills, enough to put the Lady Eagles on their heels.
“The passing got better, that’s for sure," Borie said with a laugh. “Once that happened, we were able to feed our hitters some more and get more kills.”
West Greene built a 5-2 lead in the third set with Aleea Aiken getting a kill and Addy Peters serving an ace.
Heritage kept it close and looked to end the night early by taking a 23-20 lead.
West Greene then got three straight points, including kills from Aiken and Hill, to tie the set 23-23.
Ellison put Heritage ahead by one with a kill, but another Peters kill followed by a Brown ace and another Hill kill pushed West Greene to a 26-24 win and forced a fourth set.
West Greene scored the first seven points of the fourth set, including three aces from Peters and a kill from Hill.
Heritage closed the gap to 10-5 and 16-11 before West Greene went on a run of five straight, highlighted by a Brown ace.
Heritage scored five straight points to pull within 21-16, but West Greene extended the match to a fifth set with a 25-18 win.
In the fifth set, neither team held more than a two-point lead until Heritage, holding a 10-9 lead, scored five straight to earn the 15-9 win.
“I think we got a little rattled and didn’t make the best decisions at the end,” Borie said. “They never gave up but we didn’t make good decisions and that kind of bit us in the butt.”
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