FAYETTEVILLE — The Weimar High School volleyball team went into Fayetteville High School Sept. 17 and beat the Lady Lions with a sweep by a fi nal score of 25-11, 25-7, 25-20 at Lions Gym. Fayetteville was able to hang with Weimar in the last set, but this was basically pure domination from the Lady Wildcats.
“We came out a little slow,” said Weimar head volleyball coach Amanda Machicek. “I like how we’re staying aggressive and being smart with the ball. We preach to them that you need to have a plan before you hit, so I see that we’re buying into that and it’s starting to work.”
Weimar outside hitter Janiyah Cooper had an enormous game with tons of kills throughout the contest.
“It’s a good feeling and everything,” Cooper said. “I had my teammates to help me.” Fayetteville still sits in a good spot with a record well above .500.
“Weimar’s a really good team,” said Fayetteville head volleyball coach Clint Jaeger. “They got some outstanding hitters that are really tough to stop. We were trying to make adjustments the first two sets, but we just weren't
doing it. We made that final ad - justment in the third set finally and we got some points from them. We forced some of the other hitters to hit the ball besides the two main ones. We made some adjustments from the end of the second to the beginning of the third set, so I’m proud of my girls for doing that, but Weimar’s a really good team. We shot ourselves in the foot a lot, but a lot of it they did to us, too.”
Two kills in a row from Coo- per made it 13-7 in the first set in favor of Weimar, which forced Fayetteville to call a timeout. A few more kills from the Lady Wildcats and another kill from Cooper forced the Lady Lions to call another timeout at 17-8. Two consecutive aces from Weimar setter Madison Luckey put it at 20-8, then a couple more kills, one more tip ball from Luckey, and some mistakes from Fayetteville won Weimar the set 25-11.
Weimar had a lead as big as 7-1 in the second set after a ball out of bounds from Fayetteville. A block from junior Devynn Moeckel made it 7-3, then the Lady Wildcats scored 12 points in a row on a variety of different kinds of points to go ahead 194. An ace from Weimar’s Taylor Smith made the scoreboard read 23-6 before two kills in a row from the Lady Wildcats won them the set 25-7.
A much closer third set even led to a tie score at 11-11 after a tip ball from Moeckel and both teams going back and forth. Three out of four points in the middle of the set came from Weimar, all on kills from Cooper to gain a 16-14 lead, then Weimar started to pull away at 21-17, which included two kills and a block from Smith. One more kill from Smith, a kill from Chandley Tolbert, and a serve in the net from Fayetteville won Weimar the set and match 25-20.
