Petoskey volleyball finally gets in home match, drops Gaylord in three

PETOSKEY — It’s about time.

It's a month into the season and the Petoskey varsity volleyball team finally got the chance to play host.

It only took a trip across the bridge, multiple trips down state, a cancellation of their hosted tournament and a quarantine period, but the chance to finally stay on their home court finally came Thursday.

By the way they played fresh out of that quarantine, which came after just a single practice in more than a week, Petoskey appeared happy to be back and playing at home, evidence of a three-set match win over Gaylord.

It came as a big sigh of relief for Petoskey coach Casie Parker, who was happy to get back to practice just the day before – the day the game was originally scheduled for – and finally get in a match without travel involved.

“A month into the season and we’ve had a pretty tough schedule playing some big schools,” said Parker. “Then having more than half the team gone for a week. Yesterday we got one practice in, so I was a little nervous about today. I was worried about them having energy tonight, but they did pretty well.”

While each set came with some tight opening points, Petoskey pulled away in each as well. In the opener, Petoskey began to make a strong move once Faith Bailey returned to her middle position, which brought a 13-8 lead to 19-9 and also came with six straight points served up by Olivia DeGroot at the service line.

Petoskey later won the match with a 25-10 score, with Bailey finishing on two straight aces.

It was much of the same in the second set, though there was holding off some of Gaylord as well.

Gaylord’s Alexis Kozlowski hit a big kill to make it a 13-7 deficit midway through, though the Northmen began to pull away as Blue Devil errors added up.

Petoskey’s Lia Iacoangeli then got the Northmen rolling, as she served up back to back aces to make it a 21-14 lead, then again in a 23-14 game.

The set later closed in a 25-17 win for Petoskey on an ace by Lucy Tarachas.

“We’ve been working on some things in practice and I was happy to see us execute on them,” said Parker. “I think we might have our lineup. We’ve played around with it a lot this season, more than I have in the past ever. Everyone got in and did great, so I was happy to see that.”

Facing the end of the night, Gaylord put up a bit more of a fight in the third set, which came with their first lead of the match in a 12-11 game.

It was back and forth from there, until a kill by Petoskey’s Raija Gross got things going in a 14-12 game.

Bailey then added an ace that led to five straight points for the Northmen, leading to a timeout by the Blue Devils.

Out of the break, Gaylord’s Mallory Donakowski served up an ace, to make it a 17-15 deficit, but back came Petoskey.

Gross collected an ace, Jamie Sneddon had a kill, then the run was back on and Petoskey closed with a 25-16 victory.

Looking for more consistency on the outside, Parker felt she saw it on the night.

“I thought our outside hitters did well tonight,” she said. “We’ve been struggling there all season, so that’s part of what we talked about and worked on. So we’ve been working on being more consistent outside and cutting down on our errors. I’ve been switching people to see who is going to be consistent out there and I thought tonight with Raija and Lucy, the first and second game, I thought they were doing pretty well. They’re not the tallest, but they can mix it up and make them scramble.”

Bailey led on the night with 10 kills and five aces, while Iacoangeli finished with the team lead in digs and serve receptions, adding four aces. DeGroot also led with 18 assists, while impressing Parker as well.

“I thought (Olivia) set well and made great decisions,” added Parker. “I thought Lia passed well and a couple times Raija went on a defensive spree digging some out. I was just really happy with the girls tonight.”

Statistics for the Blue Devils were not available following the match.

Petoskey returns to the court on Tuesday, Sept. 21 against Alpena on the road in another Big North Conference match, then welcomes in Traverse City West on Thursday, Sept. 23 as their next home match.

The Titans are off to another strong start to the season, having recently picked up an honorable mention nod in the latest Division 1 rankings.

Contact Sports Editor Drew Kochanny at dkochanny@petoskeynews.com. Follow him on Twitter, @DrewKochanny, and Instagram, @drewkochanny