A lack of consistency continues to haunt the Brownwood Lady Lions through the early portion of their volleyball schedule as the inability to capitalize on a promising first set laid the foundation for a 25-20, 25-8, 25-19 loss to Class 3A Clyde Tuesday night at Warren Gym.
“We have a young team and we’re going to struggle with consistency here and there, but we’ve got to start going out and winning that first set,” said Lady Lions third-year head coach Allison Smith. “We have the capability, we had the perfect set up to take that first set. The best runs that we had, we had two or three good runs, and they ended on a service error, and that’s just a drain to the team. You can’t do that and expect to go beat a really good team like that Clyde team is. If we win that first set, it’s a whole different game from there.”
Brownwood jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the opening set thanks in part to the stellar serving of Ibis Alvarado, which presented Clyde problems early. Back-to-back kills from Aubrie Felux and Miranda Northcutt allowed the Lady Lions to extend the lead to 7-3 later in the set.
Leading 11-8, the Lady Lions yielded three straight points until a service error on Clyde gave the advantage back to Brownwood. However, the Lady Lions gave up seven of the next eight points, allowing Clyde to surge in front, 18-13.
The Lady Lions were able to creep within 19-17 following a Clyde hitting error, but Brownwood got no closer.
In the second set, a kill by Kassidy Wooten opened the scoring, but Clyde immediately fired back and claimed a 5-1 advantage. Trailing 6-4, Brownwood surrendered the next six points, and was outscored 19-4 down the stretch as Clyde cruised the victory.
After a slow start in the third set, Brownwood reeled off seven straight points to grab a 7-4 edge. Molly Oliver and Ava Choate both recorded kills during the spurt. A kill from Northcutt tied the score at 8 after a surge from Clyde, but the Lady Lions later faced a 13-9 hole. An ace from Hannah Deen brought Brownwood within a pair, 15-13, but again Clyde pulled away with five of the next six points to establish a 20-15 cushion.
The Lady Lions closed the gap to 22-19 following three straight Clyde hitting errors, but the rally attempt ended there.
“There’s bright spots here and there in every single thing we do, really good serves, really good hits, really good sets, really good defense,” Smith said. “But it’s just not all coming together at the same time.”
The Lady Lions (2-12) are off until Tuesday, Sept. 6 when they host Gatesville at 6 p.m. looking to halt an eight-game skid.
