By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

JEFFERSON, Ore.–  The Gervais Volleyball team weathered the storm by Jefferson in their season-opening 25-22, 25-17, 26-24 sweep of the Lions on the road Tuesday evening.

Jefferson brought the heat, coming off of their season-opening sweep of Kennedy on Friday, and the Lions made sure it wasn’t an easy win for the Cougars.  Especially in the third set when Jefferson built themselves a 19-12 lead on Gervais during the final set, looking to extend the match to a fourth set.

“We knew we had to match their energy because at the Santiam Jamboree they came out and pushed.  They were yelling and screaming.  We thought once we cheered, we’re going to feel more like a team and we’re limiting our errors because we’re having fun instead of worrying about the different plays,” the Lions’ Lily Tegner said. “We clicked and we all pushed as hard as we could.  It was a great third set.

“We all noticed our errors and we all know how to fix them.  Seeing how we can fix them, it gives us more opportunities to get us points and I feel like we play great as a team.  We just got to communicate and just talk about everything no matter what.”

For Gervais, who worked hard to get ahead and finish off the first two sets, had to dig deep.  They rallied to make it a three-point deficit to force a Jefferson timeout.  The Cougars eventually tied it up, but the Lions didn’t back down as they kept it close.  It went into extra points as the senior-heavy Gervais team got the two-points of separation needed to open their season with a win while holding off the scrappy Jefferson team they were playing on this evening as they prepared for Yamhill-Carlton on Thursday.

“We talked together and were like ‘ok, we got this.  We can do it’ and we woke up and said ‘this is what we needed to do’ and we did it,” Gervais’ Josie Schultz said.  “Build this energy and momentum that we had from this game and hopefully bring it to Yamhill-Carlton on Thursday.  It felt like we really came together as a team and we really persevered through everything.  We worked together, we talked a lot and we worked together as a team.”

Jefferson travels to East Linn Christian Wednesday evening to close out the week.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald