CL Hawks Finally Get Off the Bus in Bi-District Win over Salado, 3-1
CL Hawks ready for ride home after getting off their bus late in win over Salado, 3-1.
The Canyon Lake Volleyball team got off their Bus in time for a win over the Salado Eagles in the first round of playoff games, 3-1.
Way to Go Hawks!!
This Eagle team was a 2nd seed but had been beaten earlier this year when these two programs met in the Tex-Fest Tournament. That encounter had a convincing Hawk win with a sweep which might had been one of those reasons CL’s team was late in getting off the bus.
“They came to play,” Head Coach Kim Clemons said. “They were a scrappy team and I told the girls that it’s going down….and I am just glad we won.”
The Lake started in a hole as Salado built an early four point lead after the first rotation of players being down, 11-7. This Eagle team continued to increase their lead to 8 points, 20-12.
Usually when a team reaches that 20 point plateau first, a win is usually the result. That winning percentage increases even more when that other team has just 12 points.
That main cog in CL’s woes came from unforced errors and in this first set the Hawks totaled 16 gifted points to their opponent.
Salado had a 7 point advantage when Kaylee Moore was next to serve with Canyon Lake still behind, 22-15. Moore had a 3 point service rally with one point coming from her Ace and kills by Kayla Wunderlich and Taylor Fillinger. Still a long way to go looking at a deficit of, 18-23.
Go Hawks!!
CL was quick with a side-out with a convincing kill from Megan Vorhis which would put Fillinger serving next and another point scored from a Caroline Kullberg kill and, 20-24 score.
Wunderlich was next up and was responsible for another Hawk 3 point serve to bring the game close enough for a one point difference, 24-25. Canyon Lake’s Riley Shear had 2 and Vorhis with 1 kill on this service rally.
Another Vorhis kill on the side-out would give CL a chance to take their first lead of the set and with Kaitlyn Cox serving and the help of Kullberg’s kill had a Hawk win, 27-25. Those 16 unforced errors was accompanied by 6 service errors.
Canyon Lake was off the bus or at least that was the thought but Salado made it known they would not leave without a fight and proceeded to dominate CL in the 2nd set and scored the first 7 points of this set and never looked back scoring a, 25-11 tally.
Canyon Lake must have still been in their bus and a no-show as their only score in this set was on a serve via a block from Fillinger. Another rash of unforced errors (14) did not have the same results as the earlier set and a lucky Hawk team was still in the contest tied, 1-1 in sets but not looking like that same team who beat Salado earlier in the year.
Canyon City Grill says Go Hawks!!
At this point, Coach Clemons was searching for any combination that would help get this Hawk team back on track. The Lake was not close in this dismantling and some major changes were in store…. changing the offense and rotation would be next in trying to shake the doldrums from these Hawk players.
That was when players like Kylie Morgan found themselves in this battle and needing to help get CL out of trouble.
“I had a lot of energy but that 2 hour drive might have had something to do with our start,” Morgan stated. “But we just needed to go hard in the game and we did it.”
On what it means to be able to come in and help get over that slow start, “This will give us a boost of confidence and Coach said she really needed us to help bring some energy.”
This start was not the best…but still being able to win that first set after having so many errors was a help. A loss in that first set followed by the, ‘coming off the rails’ in that 2nd set, would have had your Hawks in deep doo doo.
“We weren’t communicating and started to get angry and at first we thought this would be a walk in the park,” Taylor Fillinger said in how this night started. “But we started playing our game and that gave us some good energy and that helped push us forward….our goals are to make it to the Regional Tourney.”
Since unforced errors are a good indicator for a win or loss, Canyon Lake would have a total of 7 of those type of errors in their next two sets combined, which tells the story in how this contest ended with the Hawks enjoying, 25-12 and 25-10 results.
Kylie Morgan and Taylor Fillinger had big roles in Hawk’s Bi-District game.
“This has been a roller coaster season and this was a roller coaster game,” Vorhis said after finishing the game with one of her patented blocks!
Even with a sub-par start to this match, Canyon Lake was still able to turn on the jets once they got off the bus for good and ran away in those last two sets. The good news was in how many different players had a chance to get their feet wet in a Bi-District which has a more pressure setting.
“I was nervous at first,” Addyson Andrew’s said when talking about her entrance into the game to start that 3rd set. “After my first kill, I got more comfortable and then we rallied and I got happy!”
On how CL will go into their next round…Andrew quipped, “This will be a clean slate either way we will now have to go and finish out!.”
Canyon Lake will have a quick turn-a-round as they will meet Bellville on Thursday in Smithville with that first serve commencing at 7:30pm.
Way to Go Hawks!!
CL Hawks Win, 27-25, 11-25, 25-12, 25-10 Hawk Leaders: Kills: Megan Vorhis 10 Caroline Kullberg 9 Cassidy Felps 7 Kayla Wunderlich 5 Taylor Fillinger 5 Assists: Cassidy Felps 30 Digs: Lainee Moses 17 Aces: Kylie Morgan 3 Kaylee Moore 3 Taylor Fillinger 3 Blocks: Caroline Kullberg 2 Megan Vorhis 2 Taylor Fillinger 2
