Road struggles continue as Eagles fall to Olmsted Falls in four sets

Avon has won or shared the Southwestern Conference volleyball crown each of the past four years, but if they are going to make it five, the Eagles are going to need some help.

Following Thursday’s 3-1 loss at Olmsted Falls, Avon has three losses in conference play and trails the Bulldogs by two games. The hosts won their 10th consecutive match by the scores of 21-25, 25-16, 25-13, 25-14 to drop the Eagles to 8-4 overall and 6-3.

Avon rolled past Olmsted Falls about a month ago, sweeping all three sets. The Eagles opened the season with six home matches, winning five of them. Since then, Avon has had five matches on the road, winning just two. For the season, the young Eagles are 6-1 at home and 2-3 on the road.

“I think we were very mentally prepared for the match in Avon, and our energy was very high,” said coach Kara Stergiou. “Home court advantage is a big thing. We’ve got to figure it out in other people’s gyms because right now, we’re really struggling.”

Avon won a tightly contested first set by opening a 20-14 lead and then holding off the Bulldogs. The Eagles were aided by seven hitting errors by the hosts, who cleaned things up for the remainder of the night and opened big leads to start each of the last three sets. Olmsted Falls raced to a 9-1 lead in the second set, a 5-1 advantage in the third, and a 7-1 lead in the fourth.

“I think in the first set it benefitted us that they made a lot of errors, and then they didn’t do that after that,” Stergiou said. “We kept digging ourselves into holes at the beginning of the sets, which is really hard to come back from.”

It didn’t help the Avon cause that the Eagles ended the match with more hitting errors (27) than kills (26). The Bulldogs also had a huge advantage in serving, with 15 aces to just three for Avon, which had 12 errors on serve receive.

“I definitely feel that we have to learn from this match,” Stergiou said. “I feel like this was the worst our serve receive has looked all season long. They served pretty aggressively at us, but it wasn’t anything that we haven’t seen before or can’t handle. I just feel like we got into our heads tonight.”

Clare Freaney topped Avon with eight kills and three blocks. Peyton Reinart added seven kills and two blocks, while freshman Lucy Lee led the Eagles with four blocks. However, Stergiou was not happy with her team’s play at the net.

“Our block was really slow,” she said. “They were running a quick offense, and we struggled to keep up with it.”

While a conference championship seems unlikely following the loss, there is still plenty to accomplish for the Eagles. Revenge is one of the goals, as they host Amherst on Tuesday and Midview a week later, the two other SWC teams to hand Avon a loss.

“We’ve got Amherst Tuesday, who we lost to in the first round,” Stergiou said. “I’d like to beat them. I’d like to beat Midview. I’d like to beat everybody else and kind of just focus on us. I’m excited for tournament time.”

Madison Demmerle led Avon with 17 assists, while freshman Maryn Maxey topped the Eagles with 16 digs.