High school volleyball: Dons 'finish' strong to stop Springville

SPANISH FORK - Usually Spanish Fork coach Diana Troyer loves to see her team smiling and joking with one and other.

But one-point from winning a key region match, she saw them laughing just a little too much as Springville went on a 7-0 run before Spanish Fork scored that final match-point. The Dons sit atop the Region 8 standings now after the 25-20, 16-25, 25-16, 25-22 victory Tuesday.

"Finish," she said emphatically, when asked what she said to her team in its final timeout Tuesday. "Finish this game. I think they were coasting, thinking, 'We have game point, we have this game.' I was glad they were confident, but we needed to finish."

The match see-sawed back and forth between the two talented teams with powerful hitting from Springville's Kristin Clark and Turia Andrus and Spanish Fork's almost unstoppable duo of middle Kylie Schofield and outside Erin Redd.

Schofield, who will play for SUU next year, finished with 17 kills, while Redd, who is deciding between offers from Utah and Utah State, added 14 kills.

"It was a huge win," said Redd, who also earned five aces. "We were way excited because we knew they were going to be the best team we played (in region). We knew we had to focus on us, on what we do and not worry about what they do because they have some good hitters ... That's kind of what happened in the second game. We worried about them and how good their outside hitter was playing and we went away from us."

Redd said the team refocused in the third and fourth sets by keeping their energy directed at improving their own play. The Dons struggled to pass at times, something Troyer believes was exacerbated by great serving from Springville.

"This is probably the first team in our region that's served that tough to us," she said. "They're a good team ... But I just said to them, 'We serve tough in practice and we pass each other's serves. We can pass these serves.'"

Redd said the passing woes meant the Dons couldn't run some of the plays they wanted to offensively.

"When we don't pass well, we get out of system," she said. "And when we're out of system, we don't hit as well ... But we pulled together and then pulled away. We knew we needed to pass; we know defense wins games."

The Dons served fairly well too with Schofield serving up eight aces and Rachelle Remund added four aces. McKyla Theurer earned 14 digs in leading the defensive effort.

Schofield said blocking the versatile Springville hitters was difficult.

"It was way hard," she said. "It gets confusing."

She said the hardest part was not letting the passing problems bleed into the rest of their game.

"It was just a bad day," she said. "You have to let it go and not let it get to you but it's hard. It's a mental game. This was a huge win; I served the best I ever had."

e-mail: adonaldson@desnews.com