ATHENS — Athens seemed to be firing on all cylinders while Troy struggled to find a groove as the Wildcats swept the Trojans, 3-0, here Tuesday evening. 

Troy hung with the home team in the first two sets before Athens gradually pulled away for 25-16 and 25-15 victories. The Wildcats were able to put their guests in a hole early in the final set en route to a 25-13 win.

The key for the Wildcats was consistency and teamwork.

“We've definitely been working on a lot of that, like a lot of the free ball transitioning and just movements on the court to make sure that we're never letting the ball drop. And oh, my God, tonight the girls really wanted to make a point that they weren't going to let any ball drop on the court, without three touches anyway,” said Athens coach Heather Darrow.

Meanwhile, the Trojans just seemed to be out of sync. 

“They definitely were,” said Troy coach Abby Herman-Deitrick. “It didn't feel like we were connecting at all. We kind of had a rough go at it tonight. Athens has some really good hitters, so we just couldn't find any holes tonight.”

The Wildcats scored the first two points in the opening set, but Troy rallied to take a 5-3 lead. Athens didn’t trail for long, coming back to go up for good, 6-5.

The Wildcats extended their advantage to 15-8, but Troy fought back to make it 16-12 behind a 3-point spurt, then Athens countered with a 3-point burst of its own to make it 19-12.

Athens would close out the set by scoring six of the final 10 points.

The second game started as a battle of side outs with six of the first nine points coming via the side out and giving the Trojans a 5-4 edge.

The Wildcats would work their way in front, 12-9, with strong hitting, a couple of Troy miscues and five more side outs between the two teams.

Athens’ Meg Wiles would step to the service line to spearhead a 6-point run to give her team an 18-9 cushion.

Troy responded with a pair of points, but was unable to close the gap down the stretch.

The Wildcats came out hot in the third set as Wiles served the first four points and Ellie Mosher served three more to give Athens a 7-1 advantage.

Athens pushed its lead to 11-3, 13-4, and 15-6, but the Trojans refused to pack it in, chipping away to trim the margin to 17-11 before the Wildcats ended the match on an 8-2 run. 

Darrow credited her players’ confidence for the way they played as the match progressed.

“Are we gonna do this? Can we do this? And then, oh yeah, we can do this,” she said. “They put their reps in. They have been really putting the work in, so definitely, the results should be there because of the effort and the reps and the things that they are doing. 

“It should be like that out there. It shouldn't just be like, Whoa, what a shocker that we're playing like this, because we work on this all the time in practice. It's really exciting for what we're doing in practice to be showing in the game. 

“I am very proud of them because they acted like a team. We weren't dependent on just one kid or anything out there. It was all of them together, and that's definitely what they've been really working on this year.” 

“It just seems like we couldn't find anything, any of the sets, that worked really well for us,” said Herman-Deitrick. “We had some girls that were kind of stuck, it seemed like, in a rut where we couldn't do anything right. 

“Our defense wasn't where it needed to be tonight, so we definitely have some things that we need to work on.” 

Ellie Mosher had 13 kills, 2 aces and 7 digs; Emi McQuay had 4 kills; Evelyn Roy had 9 kills and 4 digs; Hannah Parrish had 2 kills 4 digs and 3 aces; Kendall Gallasso had 3 kills; Lainey Vosburgh had 7 digs; Kayla Forbes had 17 digs and 2 aces; Meg Wiles had 24 assists and 4 aces;and Emma Mallore had 3 kills. 

Nya Watson dished out 14 assists to go with 3 digs and an ace for the Trojans while Haidyn Watson contributed 11 digs, 5 kills and a block. Bella Wood had 5 kills; Alexa Lawrence chipped in with 8 digs, 3 kills and an ace; Alli Bailey added 13 digs; Liana Lyon had 2 digs and an ace; and Gracie Brown tacked on 1 kill.

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