THAYER – While it didn’t end up the way the Altoona-Midway Middle School volleyball squad would have liked, it was still a thrilling start to the 2018 season.

         The Lady Jets, playing a tense three-set match in the varsity contest, lost a nail-biting 12-25, 25-16, 13-15 decision to the host Thayer Lady Flyers here Tuesday afternoon.

         “We got the rust out during the first set, then in the second set we calmed down and had some good hard serves, great passes, and even a spike,” said AMMS head coach Marci Henderson.

         After dropping the first set, the Lady Jets got things rolling in the second set behind strong serving from Emma Martin and Makayla Wood and strong hitting from Wood, Heather Lane and Alaura Maple.

         In the deciding third set, Wood notched three more hits and it was close all the way but Thayer squeezed out a 15-13 victory.

         “The third set we were up, but then we started over-thinking and let them back in the game,” Henderson noted. “The game came down to just a couple of mental mistakes. We will work on that Wednesday and get ready for the quad Thursday (at Edna), when we will meet Thayer again.”

         For the match, Martin led the way with 9 serves while Wood had eight and Lane and Summer Raymond added six each. Wood led the Lady Jets with 10 hits overall while Maple recorded eight and Lane notched six.

         Thayer also had to go three sets to win the preliminary JV match by a score of 22-25, 25-12, 15-8.

         “The girls were nervous going into the jayvee match. We had four 6th graders and a 7th grader who had never played before,” Henderson said. “Once we settled down we started making the passes we need to go with some awesome serves.”

 

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         Emmalynn Pupanek recorded a dozen serves for Altoona-Midway while Sophia Dannels and Autumn Raymond added eight and seven, respectively. Anna Beckwith paced the Lady Jets with seven hits and Pupanek was credited with six.

         AMMS volleyball is back in action Thursday at the Edna Quadrangular, beginning at 4:30.