VISALIA – Central Valley Christian volleyball has been off to a hot start in the Tri-County-Kings League. Through their first three matches, the Cavaliers have taken care of business with three wins while only dropping one set in the process. And at home this past Wednesday night, the Cavaliers showed no signs of slowing down as they hosted the Immanuel Eagles.
From the opening serve, the Cavaliers seized momentum and never looked back as they pulled away for the first two sets. The Eagles put up a better fight in the third, but the Cavaliers held on to complete the 3-0 (25-12, 25-11, 25-17) win on Oct. 2. As his team played well from start to finish, CVC head coach Mike Kroeze believes the tournaments they played earlier in the season have helped the Cavaliers become the team they are now.
“All the extra games that we’re playing, it’s helping us fine tune mistakes and errors that we were making early in the season,” Kroeze said. “I am very happy and very proud of how our team played. They did really well.”
Along with improving to 4-0 in league play, the Cavaliers improved their overall record to 25-9 this season. As the Cavaliers have gotten off to a hot start this year, junior outside hitter Emma Mihalcin and her teammates have used a potential league title as motivation.
“We have a good mentality and goal to win league,” Mihalcin said. “That’s just been a big goal for the past few years and we’re really focused on going one game at a time and staying strong.”
With their goal being a league championship, the Cavaliers needed this win over Immanuel. So in the opening set of the match, they got down to work. After an early 6-6 tie, CVC went on a 6-0 run to take a 12-6 lead. The Eagles responded to cut their deficit to 13-10, but the Cavaliers dominated with a 12-2 run to win, 25-12, to start the night.
In the second, the Cavaliers kept up the energy as they raced out to a 19-8 lead. Mihalcin then came through with several kills down the stretch to help her team win, 25-11, and push the lead to 2-0. In the third, the Cavaliers continued to control the match as they jumped out to an 18-8 lead. The Eagles had some fight in them as they cut the deficit to 20-14, but the Cavaliers held on to win, 25-17, as their energy was too much for the Eagles.
“We talked before the game about starting strong and staying strong and I think we really implemented that,” Mihalcin said about their momentum. “We were very upbeat and we had positive energy and I think that helped a lot.”
With the sweep, the Eagles fell to 2-1 in league and 14-17 overall. While it was a tough loss for her team, Immanuel head coach Alyssa DenHartog believes the Eagles can take away several lessons from this loss.
“CVC got us more than we got them but we kept trying to learn and adjust to the serves they were throwing at us, the offense that they threw at us and we tried to find a way to get kills against their really strong defense,” DenHartog said. “As good as CVC is, we can battle with them and compete but we definitely have things that we need to work on.”
With their win over Immanuel, the Cavaliers remain unbeaten halfway through their league season. With four more matches between them and a league title, Kroeze believes the Cavaliers just need to stay the course.
“We’re positioned well for the second half of league play,” Kroeze said. “We’re playing well. Our team is improving in every game so I’ll just keep steering the ship in the same direction.”
