Finding positives

“What a great match! I couldn’t be prouder of the girls. We’re better right now, than we were at the end of last year.”
Denise Craig was wildly enthusiastic at Lee’s Summit North Thursday night, prompting junior standout Taryn Nash to say, “You should see her when we win. She really gets excited.”
Despite getting off to an 8-3 lead in the first game of the non-conference match, the Patriots fell 25-17, 25-19 in a contest where Truman showed flashes of brilliance.
But in the end, too many mistakes proved to be the Patriots downfall.
“Did you see Kassidy’s kill to start that first game?” asked Craig, as she high fived the junior middle hitter. “How could you not get excited when you start like that?
“We did so many good things, and that’s what I just told the girls. We didn’t do enough good things to win, but we played with a lot of heart and intensity, and we can use tonight to build on the rest of the season.”
Nash and Kassidy Ritchell agreed.
“You know what we need to do?” asked Nash, who had six assists in the game. “We need to just play and not think about our mistakes.
“When we make a mistake, you can see the girls going over things in their mind – while they’re playing. They’re over analyzing everything right now. But it’s early, and we’re going to get better – a lot better.”
Ritchell, who had five kills, said the team needs to get some games under its belt.
“When we play, we play well,” Ritchell said. “When we’re out there thinking about things, we don’t do very well. Tonight we got off to the good start. It was great getting the kill to start the first game. I saw coach jumping up and down near the bench and everyone got excited.
“Then we get the (8-3) lead and it’s looking good, but we start thinking about things and (North) gets back in the game.”
North’s Marianne Beal, who led all players with eight kills, put a dent in the floor with her first kill and that set the stage for the Broncos comeback in the opener.
“Beal is just a great player,” Craig said. “She wasn’t a huge factor in the first game because they went on that (11-3) run by capitalizing on our mistakes.
“Then Beal kind of took over the second game.”
The Broncos scored their 23rd and 24th points on Beal kills.
“She’s good,” Nash said, shaking her head.
Added Ritchell, “We’ve seen a lot of her and she is a great player.”
Despite the loss, Craig left the Broncos gym with a bounce to her step.
“We’re going to be so good this year,” she said. “Eleanor (Palaita, who had six kills) is playing the outside and she looked so natural.
“And the girls are fitting into their positions. You could look at the score tonight and be disappointed, but I saw so many good things, there is no way I could leave being disappointed.”
With no Truman cheerleaders at the match, the varsity girls cheered for the junior varsity, which lost 25-23, 25-19 and the JV squad returned the favor during the varsity match.
“We love to cheer for them,” Nash said. “Cheerleaders don’t usually go away for matches, so we just cheer for each other. And it really fires us up to see the JV girls out there doing their crazy cheers.”