By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

JEFFERSON, Ore.–  Scio had a little bit of a roller-coaster of a ride to close out their 25-16, 25-11, 25-22 PacWest Conference sweep of Jefferson Tuesday night.  A good test for them to adjust, especially with a long road trip ahead of them against Taft Thursday night on the road.

In each set, they adjusted and pulled away going into the third set.  But that’s when things got interesting.

The Lions adjusted well going into the third set that opened up the door for Jefferson to possibly take a set from the sixth-ranked Loggers when they took a 15-14 lead on Scio.

“It’s different because we don’t normally go up-and-down with it when it comes to the last set, we normally go up.  It was a very tough challenge for us because we had to push through it and finish it and stay strong with it mentally, but I feel like it was a mental game for us.  We were all in our heads…But we were able to push it through at the end.” Scio’s Carrie Jones said of the challenge.  “We just got to have the mentality that we’re going to do it and we can do whatever comes at us as a team and do it together.”

Each game that Jefferson had this year so far has helped the Lions to this point of the season.  The feel is that they’re more together as a team compared to this point last year.

“They’re a good team, we played a lot better in the thrid set.  We made a new defense  and I think it worked so much better.  With (Scio) and you got stronger hitters like that, we’re in a better position to get the ball,” Jefferson Lions’ Amira Saad said.  “They’re good teams (we’ve played) and I’m excited.  I think we’re gelling a lot better as a team this year than we did last year and I think that’s helping us perform better as a group instead of individually.”

The Loggers wheeled off six-straight points to retake the lead at 20-15, but Jefferson weathered the Storm and kept pace with Scio down the stretch with the Lions hosting 6A North Salem on Wednesday night.

Photos By Jeremy McDonald