Molly Stoll's emergence in the middle gives Tawas hope for a strong finish to the season.
Leighanna Loomis hit this one hard, but Whittemore-Prescott had a rough night overall at Tawas Area on Wednesday.
Brent Baker
Jenny Jacques spikes one against Whittemore-Prescott on Wednesday.

TAWAS AREA - Oct. 1, 2008 - Tawas Area has had its hare of long nights this season. But Wednesday, the Braves' volleyball squad inflicted some damage of its own in defeating Whittemore-Prescott in four games, 25-17, 18-25, 25-9, 25-14.

"Things are starting to come together," said Tawas coach Carol Elowski. "We made some lineup changes and the girls have started to get used to them."

It's also helped that as the season has progressed, so has the play of sophomores Molly Stoll and Dana Kolnitys, who both played key roles in Wednesday's victory.

W-P was coming off its surprise victory over Pinconning a week earlier, but wasn't able to repeat its performance at Tawas.

In the opening game, the Braves pulled away from a 20-17 advantage as Kolnitys served a pair of aces and Jenny Jacques turned in a pair of kills as Tawas scored the final five points.

W-P came back in the second game from a 17-13 deficit to outscore Tawas 12-1 down the stretch. Chelsea Jasman had a number of blocks and kills and finished the game with an ace, while Larrissa McGeathy had two kills and a block during that run.

That turned out to be the only real highlight for the Cards.

"What a disappointing and frustrating match," said W-P coach Helen Loomis. "Game 2 was the only bright part of the evening where their play was somewhat consistent.

"The other three games their play was flat and non-aggressive."

The Cards were playing without an injured Chloe Moraitis, who is solid at every position, as well as coming off the W-P Powder-puff football game the night before.

"Possibly the two-hour Powder-puff football game... had some bearing on this, and having Chloe out didn't help us either," Loomis said. "We know we have the ability, but it just wasn't there tonight."

Tawas, meanwhile, looked to be reaping the benefits of a gauntlet run of weekend tournaments that has resulted in few wins, but plenty of valuable experience. The Braves have run into Saginaw Heritage four times, as well as a host of other Class A and state-ranked squads.

"Heritage, and teams like that from bigger schools, they're great squads for us to play," Elowsky said. "We take what we can against them. Molly has gotten to see some big 'middles' and sees how they can take control of games.

"Both Molly and Dana, for sophomores, are really coming along."

Stoll had five kills in the third game, which Tawas dominated from the start and two more to start the fourth game. That fourth set was tied at 6-6 when Kolnitys took over at the service line and served five straight points, including three aces, to build and 11-6 lead, and W-P never got any closer than four.

The win moved Tawas to 9-13-1 (2-4 NEMC) while W-P fell to 5-10-1 (1-5). W-P plays Saturday at the Hale Invitational, while Tawas is off until hosting NEMC co-leader John Glenn on Wednesday, Oct. 8.

 

W-P Stats: Chelsea Jasman 13 points, 1 ace, 1 block kill, 10 digs, 4 spike kills; Cortney Bork 9 points, 1 ace, 1 block kill, 9 digs; Brittnie Winkle 7 points, 1 ace; Kayla Camp 5 assists; Larrissa McGeathy 5 spike kills, 2 block kills; Leighanna Loomis 12 digs, 4 spike kills; Corinne Crawford 10 digs; Alyssa Gielda 2 spike kills.