Prep volleyball: Mountain View does little wrong in victory

OREM — It's always nice for the winning team when everything seems to be going right. Of course the opposite is true of the team that just can't seem to get anything to work at all.

The Mountain View Bruins' volleyball team benefited from a little of both against the Westlake Thunder as they defeated them in three easy games 25-10, 25-18, 25-12. The Bruins seemed able to do no wrong, and the Thunder couldn't put anything together.

"We didn't know what to expect against Westlake. We've been calling them the wild card team. They have a couple of nice wins," said Mountain View coach Andrew Young after his team beat up on the new squad from Saratoga Springs.

The Bruins happily walked away with the victory, especially pleased with some areas of their play, and are now soundly sitting at 4-2 in Region 7 play as the first half of the season comes to an end.

"The girls played intense the whole time. It wasn't a roller coaster ride like we usually do, and we didn't let up all night," said Young, pleased with the way his team stayed focused and put Westlake away even after rushing out to big leads in each game.

One especially pleasing aspect of the game to the Bruins, was the intense serving. Though Mountain View did serve up 10 errors, the 22 aces made up for every single one.

"We were choosing wisely where we were serving and we were getting it into the spots," said Young, happy that his team was finally able to hit the spots they've been practicing for all season long. He added that the Bruins are a tough-serving team when they get the balls to fall.

The Bruins were led by the tough serving and hitting night by junior outside hitter Chelsey Schofield, who finished with an impressive three-game total of nine aces, 13 kills and 14 digs. Rachel Steele added six kills and six digs. Heather Glassford finished with six aces and 20 assists, and Sheri Millard added five kills.

The two teams found themselves tied at 8-8 in Game 1 before the Bruins went on a 13-0 run with Schofield serving that left the first game out of reach for the Thunder.

The Thunder were able to keep things a little closer in Game 2, but the Bruins still walked away with the fairly easy victory. And Game 3 was similar to the first game as after a 6-6 tie, the Bruins ran away with 19 of the next 25 points to finish their opponents off.

Westlake star Elle Brainard was finally able to get things working after a slow start in Game 1 and finished with seven kills. But the Bruins knew all about Brainard's 6-foot-5 height and her abilities before the match even started.

"We focused practices around that right side. We spent two days working on her," said Young.

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