Coyotes continue to roll in CMAC play
Wendy Alexander/The Madera Tribune
Madera’s Jocelynn Markle reaches up for a kill during Thursday’s three-set win over Edison.
Although the Madera Coyotes girls volleyball team had visions of a quick victory over the Edison-Fresno Tigers in a County/Metro Athletic Conference match at Joe Flores Gym, the Coyotes had to play the match first.
The Coyotes easily defeated the Tigers earlier this month at the Madera Classic girls volleyball tournament en route to a second place overall finish. However, Thursday, the Coyotes had a battle with the Tigers, winning in three sets 25-23, 25-20, 26-24.
“It was kind of a subdued game,” head coach Meghan Haas said. “There wasn’t a lot of excitement. Our middles had trouble putting the ball away, which we weren’t used to. Our outsides played well. We just weren’t connecting with our middles. We had to make adjustments.”
Katelyn Siegl led the Coyotes with 17 kills. Sophomore Jocelyn Markle kickstarted the Coyotes’ offense with nine kills. Hallie Page added eight more.
“Markle played the whole match and played great for us,” Haas said.
In the first set, the Coyotes missed six serves, but came away with a two-point victory.
“We didn’t play great,” Haas said. “We passed okay on serve receive. There were just little things that didn’t connect. We had a lot of momentum killers.”
The Coyotes found themselves in a 14-4 hole before battling back.
“We were terrible in serve receive,” Haas said. “We kept chipping away.”
The Coyotes cut the lead to 20-15 and eventually pulled out a 26-24 victory to win the match.
“There’s definitely a silver lining,” Haas said. “To come back from 14-4 and 20-15 is big at our level. We played poorly to put ourselves in that postiion, but we fought to come back. Kudos to that.”
The Coyotes headed into Tuesday’s rivalry match against Madera South with a 4-0 record in the CMAC and look for a clean slate through the CMAC. However, Haas knows that emotions run high and her team still needs to play their game.
“I told them that anyone can beat us on any given day,” Haas said. “We have a target on our back. The other teams have the advantage and they are the underdog. It’s tough to be on the other end of that because ther’es responsibility to that. It’s a wake up call. It’s an affirmation that this is going to be a battle the entire season. The match can go either way.”
