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South Tahoe volleyball swept by Dayton in key league match

Anthony Gentile
agentile@tahoedailytribune.com
South Tahoe outside hitter Kendhyl Delacour elevates for a kill in the Vikings’ three-set loss to Dayton Tuesday night. Delacour led the Vikings with a team-high nine kills.
Anthony Gentile / Tahoe Daily Tribune |

In a match with playoff implications on Tuesday night, the South Tahoe volleyball team simply made too many errors to prevail. The Vikings were swept by visiting Dayton 25-19, 25-23, 25-23, a result that leaves both teams tied for fourth place in the Div. I-A Northern League standings.

“This was an important game for us, but we could not overcome the fact that we made too many mistakes — with games on the line, we’re making unforced errors and we just can’t come back from them,” Vikings head coach Dan McLaughlin said.

South Tahoe (14-12, 6-5 I-A Northern) made 31 unforced hitting and service errors in a match that was close throughout. Dayton (17-8, 6-5) played cleaner, and closed out the Vikings with late runs in each of the first two sets — the Dust Devils scored the last seven points of the first set and broke a 23-23 tie in the second frame with two straight points.



“It’s something my girls have been struggling with a little bit — coming on at the end,” Dayton head coach Mike Edmiston said. “Tonight they were on it no matter what — we found ways to get out of the bad rotations quickly and cleanly.”

In the third set, Dayton reeled off six straight points to take a 14-10 lead — and didn’t trail the rest of the way en route to the sweep. Neither team had more than a six-point lead at any point in the match — South Tahoe led by five points in each of the first two sets.



“The unforced errors are keeping the games close, and when we get to the end the game is tight and we make the mistakes,” McLaughlin said. “The whole team goes into so many peaks and valleys that they struggle — we have to work our way past them.”

Outside hitter Kendhyl Delacour led South Tahoe with nine kills, an ace and a block in the loss and outside hitter Jade Child had four kills, an ace and 10 digs. Outside hitter Paige Naccarato finished with five kills and an ace, middle hitter Haley Crowson tallied three kills and middle hitter Lexi Steinbergs had two stuff blocks — defensively, libero Kaitlynn Watson had a match-high 15 digs.

For Dayton, outside hitter Cheyanne Strong finished with a match-high 15 kills. In the first round of league play, South Tahoe beat the Dust Devils in five sets — the teams will now battle for the league’s last playoff spot with five matches left in the regular season.

“It’s up to them — this is a game that is decided by players, and they have to make good choices to improve their games and get better,” McLaughlin said. “We’ll see if they work a little bit harder in practice to correct a couple mistakes and get the system down that they’re supposed to.”

Last weekend, the Vikings split a pair of road matches in consecutive days. South Tahoe was swept by league-leading Elko Friday night and swept Spring Creek the following afternoon.

South Tahoe returned to action Thursday at home against Fallon. The Vikings host Sparks Friday night at 6 p.m.


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