Advance volleyball bounces back with straight-set win over Leopold

Advance's Addie Curtis sets the ball during the first set of a match against Leopold on Thursday in Advance, Missouri. The Hornets won in straight sets.

Josh Mlot

ADVANCE, Mo. -- Not a lot has gone wrong for Advance volleyball yet this season. When it did -- a straight-set defeat to Bernie on Tuesday -- the Hornets' shortcomings came spilling into view. On Thursday, Advance showed it may be on the road to repairing some of those things.

Two days after their first loss of the season, the Hornets swept past visiting Leopold 2-0 (25-14, 25-12) to move to 9-1-1 on the year.

"When you're winning, of course everyone is together. It takes a game like [Tuesday] to really see what the big problems are," Advance coach Erin Hoffman said. "That's when I saw we're not a team. Teams pick each other up and push each other, and we didn't do that on Tuesday.

Addie Curtis (14) and the rest of the Advance volleyball team celebrates a point against Leopold on Thursday night at Advance High School. The Hornets won the match 2-0.

Josh Mlot

"They did [internalize that]. They communicated a lot better. Everybody was talking to each other. I felt like it was much better tonight."

Leopold (2-4-1) hung tight for long stretches of both sets, but ultimately conceded late runs to Advance, digging a hole that was too deep to get out of.

"The momentum changed," Leopold coach Sandy Davis said. "When you miss a serve at a huge point, it kind of changes the momentum of the game. We let off on our hitting a little bit. It's 15-year-old girls -- you just never know.

"We are very young. There was a time I had three freshmen, two sophomores and a junior out there. So a lot of it is just about experience. Hopefully, they're improving every game."

Instead it was the experience of the Hornets, who graduated just one player from a year ago, that prevailed. The hosts were battling to hold on to an 11-10 edge in the first set when they found their footing a bit. A quick four-point swing, capped by a Raylee Metcalf kill, gave Advance some breathing room, and a 16-12 lead was broken open thanks to a seven-point service run from Roz Schrader.

The Hornets put the game away, 25-14, on another kill by Metcalf.

"One of the main skills we're working on is just hit the ball," Hoffman said. "At this point in the season, just hit the ball so you can figure out how to adjust to where every ball is a good hit. We would get scared and worry about hitting it out or this or that. I think when they just started to hit the ball was when things changed, because that gets you kind of fired up too."

Hoffman made a conscious decision to let her players figure things out for themselves, and it paid off when the second set played out in a similar fashion to the first -- with Advance making adjustments to pull away in a back-and-forth battle.

Leopold libero Shelby Shreckenberg passes the ball as teammate Kyla Beel looks on. The Wildcats fell to Advance in straight sets on Thursday in Advance, Missouri.

Josh Mlot

"We're working really hard right now on trying to work on becoming more of a team," Hoffman said. "Normally I'm up walking around, but I wanted to make them talk to each other, and I think they did a much better job of really communicating to each other. The example I used in the locker room is that normally we talk at each other, and we need to talk to each other."

The Wildcats took an early 3-1 advantage in the second set on a Kyla Beel kill, but a four-point swing put Advance on top 5-3. From their, the teams traded punches in a one-point game, with Leopold staying as close as 7-6 after a Lindsey Duckworth kill. But a double-contact whistle on the visitors allowed the Hornets to maintain their lead.

Leading 10-8, Alanis Below earned a point at the net for Advance and sparked a 10-0 swing, including a nine-point service run by Addie Curtis (team-high 12 service points), who put an exclamation point on the decisive swing with an ace that made the score 20-8.

Madison Wuebker polished off the match with a block that dropped over the net for a 25-12 set.

Advance's Megan Lee attackes the ball during a sweep of Leopold on Thursday at Advance High School.

Josh Mlot

"You don't give up. You learn from [it]," Davis said. "If you're getting blocked, you learn to adjust your hit. If you're on defense, you learn with every play. Advance is a well-rounded team and they've got some very strong players. So you learn from it -- every play of every game -- and you adjust to it."

Leopold was paced by Beel's five kills. She added three digs and a block. Patience VanderMierden had 11 assists and five digs and Shelby Shreckenberg added 12 digs.

The Wildcats are back on the court Friday in the St. Francis Medical Center Dig for Life Challenge. They will face Southland at 4:30 p.m. and Lesterville at 7 in pool play at the Show Me Center. Pool play will continue Saturday, followed by bracket competition.

Advance hosts Notre Dame on Monday.