Jennifer Collins Agency

Candace Moulton

         

The Lady Lightning held their first ever Volleyball Alumni game on Friday October 3rd at the JS Thunderdome. JS Volleyball Alumni were invited to participate in this first ever event to help raise money for the volleyball program. Members of this year's Alumni team, and the year they graduated from JS, were Jennifer Abel 2002, Tonya Allen (Carter) 2003, Crystal Campos 2002, Amber Carter 2004, Taylor Duvall (Williams) 2002, Amanda Newcomb 2007, Becca Millard 2004, Katrina Pound (Abel) 2006, Allison Reed 2007 and Ashley Vrooman 2006. The coaches were Cheryl Newcomb and Dori Abel.

The alumni team started out a little rusty but within a few minutes started to show why they were invited to participate in the event. Amber Carter and Becca Millard started to put a lot of pressure on the varsity team with some powerful kills and kind of caught the Lady Lightning off guard. The Lady Lightning soon settled down but it was too late to win the first game as they lost 16-25. The Alumni team felt the momentum and continued to dominate the 2nd game with excellent serving from Ashley Vrooman and good inside play from Taylor Duvall and Crystal Campos. Allison Reed showed she can still get up over the net with some nice kills. They went on to win 12-25.

Coach Newcomb had a talk with his girls and they game out in game 3 with a whole different attitude. Emily Wilson had some nice kills and Abby Lombardo was serving and setting very well. Then Nicole Barker and Haley Allen started to feel the groove and had some awesome kills. The Lady Lightning won the third game 25-19. In the fourth game the alumni team brought in all their guns to finish off the Lady Lightning but Kim Trowbridge started skying over the net and blocked Carter and Millard several times while Wilson and Allen started killing the ball and picking up the points. Jackie Cook and Lombardo were near perfect on their setting while Nicole Barker jumped in with some blocks as well. Newcomb was doing some great setting for the alumni and Katrina Pound was working hard at defense with some good diggs, but the Lady Lightning even the series at 2-2 with a 25-21 win.

The fans were loving the intense volleyball action as the volley went back and forth many times on each point. The last game was only to 15, so both sides started the game with great volleyball play. The Lady Lightning had some bad breaks with the ball hitting for points in the far corners out of play and they fell behind to the Alumni and couldn't catch up, the Alumni won the last game 11-15.

This Alumni game was a great idea and offered some of the best volleyball of the year so far!