After finishing as the district runner-ups following a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Archbishop McCarthy this past Thursday, Oct. 15, the Patriots (4-7) have begun to prepare for their regional quarterfinal clash with Jensen Beach (17-1).
In the district finals loss, the Patriots posted a total of 25 kills, seven service aces, three stuff blocks in addition to 18 attack errors and four service errors.
“We had some key players that had an off night, and unfortunately sometimes no matter how hard you prepare, players just aren’t ‘on’ their game,” head coach Lisa Moreau said. “Archbishop is a tough opponent so we had to be firing on all cylinders to beat them, and overall as a team we weren’t. We needed to be much more aggressive and aware of the location of our opponents so we weren’t serving and hitting directly at them. We also needed to play more cohesively as a team.”
In order to bounce back versus Jensen Beach and advance in the playoffs, Coach Moreau planned to address the team’s downfalls in the upcoming practices.
“I feel like we needed a bit of a refresher after the loss, so we took Friday night off,” Coach Moreau said. “During our practices, we will be focusing on energy and relentlessly attacking, things we didn’t have nor do enough of in the [district] finals. We can’t ‘go through the motions’ during matches, volleyball is too fast and intense to play hesitantly or without being consistently aggressive. If you’re not playing all out as a team, you are playing to lose, so that is what our focus will be from Monday all the way through our match on Wednesday.”
The Patriots will have to overcome their struggles from the previous contest in order to punch their ticket to the regional semifinals when they travel to Jensen Beach Wednesday, Oct. 25, with game time set for 7 p.m.
