GREENVILLE – The Lady Wave defeated the visiting Xenia Lady Buccaneers in straight sets to earn a 3-0 Tuesday night MVL win.
“I am feeling very blessed with the talent that the Lady Wave has given us at this point in the season,” said Greenville head coach, Michelle Hardesty. “We’re seven matches in and they are setting the bar pretty high.”
Xenia grabbed an early 5-9 first set lead before freshman Lizzie Shaffer stepped to the serving line with the Lady Wave taking advantage of a 6-0 scoring run to lead 11-6, a lead that would hold up for a 25-21 Greenville opening set win.
Set No. 2 belonged to the Lady Wave as they bolted out to an 8-1 advantage and had just one service error the entire set. With the teams settling in and Greenville leading 17-12, the Lady Wave closed out the set on an 8-0 run to get a double digit 25-12 second set win and lead 2-0.
“That is key,” Coach Hardesty said of the set’s lone service error. “We had a lot of aces tonight as a team. They recognize the issues when we talk about them – ask them to stay focused. They’re pulling out the wins so super proud of them.”
Greenville held a 15-9 lead midway through the third set bringing a timeout from the Xenia bench. The Lady Buccaneers used the break to go on a 6-1 run to trail 16-15, but a Lady Wave time out proved to be the answer for Greenville with the local girls using a 9-0 run with Brooke Schmidt at the serving line to get back to back double digit wins closing out the night with a 25-15 third set win and get the sweep on the night.
“Another excellent night by the girls tonight,” Jim Hardesty noted. “Brooke had another strong night with 19 kills on 32 attempts.”
“That’s amazing but it’s a team effort too,” Michelle Hardesty added. “You have to have a good pass, the set has to be there for her (Brooke) to perform. She’s going to execute every time she has the opportunity and it’s kind of expected – she gets a lot of kudos from us.”
“Shyanne (Gibboney) had a good night on pass serve receive,” said Jim Hardesty. “That was the whole key tonight. Our passing was on point tonight which puts our hitting on point. I’ll take our chances all day long if we can get that kind of passing.”
The win over Xenia came on the heels of Monday night’s 3-1 MVL road win over the Troy Lady Trojans, the first win over the Troy for the Hardesty’s and the first for the Lady Wave since 2006.
“That’s a big win last night that led over to this,” Jim said. “That really meant a lot to them to get that first win over Troy since 2006.”
Brooke Schmidt leads the MVL with 84 kills followed by Sidney’s Kyla Rush with 55 kills and is fourth in the conference in blocks. Shyanne Gibboney leads the MVL with 89 digs and leads the league with 268 pass points. Greenville sophomore Kindyl Peltz paces the MVL with 176 assists.
