SALEM, West Virginia - With the autumn bringing the changing colors and a chill in the air to the Valley of Learning, the Salem volleyball played host this evening to one of their oldest local rivals. It was the Falcons of Fairmont State that came down to Salem, and they found a tough matchup in front of an excited crowd in T. Edward Davis Gymnasium. However, despite Salem's resurgent performance, the Falcons were able to hand the Tigers a tough 3-0 loss.
In the first set, Salem trailed the Falcons initially, but battled right back to keep the pressure on Fairmont State. The Tigers rallied to knot the set up at 16-16, and even developed a 18-16 behind a string of scoring plays with Makenna Long at the serving line. However, the Falcons pushed back to tie the game back up at 20-20, and rode that momentum of a tight 25-23 set win to open the contest.
Undaunted by the tough result in set 1, Salem opened set 2 extremely well. The Tigers truly controlled the contest, and built up a 9-3 early on. The Falcons stormed back to tie things back up at 14-14. Then, Salem regrouped and made a run of their own to go up 17-15 with some strong play from the former Ritchie County Rebel duo Sydney Kopshina and Kayla Holbrook. However, the Tigers were stung by yet another Falcon run late in the set, and Fairmont State took set 25-22.
For set 3, Salem had some trouble early on as they struggled to get their offense going as well as it had been going in sets 1 and 2. However, the Tigers did eventually get things going behind kills from Hailey Haynes and Valentina Poti. Yet, the damage was already done, and the Falcons handed Salem a 25-13 set loss, and therefore a 3-0 loss for the overall contest.
From the scorer's table, the clear bright spot for the Tigers was Makenna Long's resurgent return to the lineup after an extended absence. Long led Salem offensively with 8 kills, 2 blocks, and a staggering 5 service aces. Defensively, Katie Kennedy tallied up 10 digs for the Tigers as well.
Even with the loss, Salem has some big offensive improvements to build on for their next contest. For their next matchup, they head down to Mount Hope, West Virginia to take on the Warriors of Appalachian Bible College on Thursday, October 10 at 4 PM.
