| A pumped Emery High volleyball team celebrates the win over Carbon during Homecoming week. |
Before a noisy, basketball type crowd, the Lady Spartans of Emery High School played like champions and defeated the defending state champion Carbon High School in Castle Dale 25-17, 27-25, 20-25 and 26-24. Earlier in the week, Emery had traveled to Delta and defeated the Rabbits for the third time this year 19-25, 25-20, 25-17 and 25-19. Haylie Hansen served 12 straight points in game three.
Back to the Carbon game, Emery was simply the best team on the floor this day and left the Dinos a little shocked and a little dazed at their defeat by Emery. Carbon is a great program and this year’s team should enjoy a very successful stay at state but today was an Emery day.
After being tied at 12-12 in the opening game, Emery played volleyball almost to perfection. They served well, they returned well and they, to put it bluntly, looked unbeatable in this game. Leading 18-17, Emery scored on a Carbon long hit to go up by 2 points. Ashley Hansen then served out the game as Emery won by eight.
In game 2, Emery found a rejuvenated Dino team that opened up an 11-6 lead as they were prepared to fend off this region opponent. Emery fought back and tied the score at 14-14 before they, for the only time of the day, had five straight errors to find themselves down 14-19.
Emery played together to get to 22-24 and then never allowed Carbon to come close to game point. Emery scored point 23 on a block by Shaylie Huntington, point 24 to tie the score on a block by Rachel Rasmussen, point 25 on a Dino hit into the net and Carbon tied it at 25 on a nice return. Huntington then had a tip for point 26 and Natalee Hanson had a kill for point 27 and the win.
In game three, Carbon had their backs to the wall and got the win that they needed. The Dinos are too good to simply hand their archrivals a match.
In game four, Emery again found themselves down 5-11 and again they came back to even the score at 14-14 on a Camille Fehlberg kill. They took their first lead at 15-14 on a Natalee kill.
Carbon took a lead of 20-24 before Emery scored the last 6 points to take the game and the match. Jaylee Jensen served for the last points including an ace for point 25. Although Camille had the kill for point 26, in the final sequence Ashley Hansen, Natalee and Shaylie joined her with tremendous hits.
We would be amiss if we failed to mention the players that did the setting that helped set up the kills. Haylie Hansen, Kassie Allred and Jaylee all did a great job of running the middle and keeping the ball in play and playable. Tahna Merrill also was a major contributor in the win as she blocked well.
Head Coach Ferd Allred after the game had this to say, “The girls decided to play the full game today instead of messing around with their opponent. This was a quality win against a quality team. They all showed up today, they all played. I’m proud of them.”
When asked about the pre-game, he said, “I just told them that if we can shut the little things down that have been beating us, we will be right there at the end. Against Carbon today we did.”
Against the Dinos Emery crossed the line that separates the winners from the pretenders. They played well when they had a lead, they fought back and never quit if they were down and they made us proud. They now host Granite High tonight, Tuesday, at Emery High School before looking ahead to state next week. Good luck girls and congratulations for a game well played.