Garden City loses to Barton in three sets

By Mike Pilosof

Photo by Adam Shrimplin

Garden City, KS-What started off well for Garden City ended in another frustrating night for Head Coach Patrick Hiltz.

Rayanne de Oliveira had a team-high 12 kills, Karina de Oliveira added 21 digs, and Barton beat the Broncbusters in three sets 21-25, 13-25, 16-25 Wednesday night at Conestoga Arena.

"We were bad tonight," Hiltz said. "Mentally, we were soft and not ready to play. As well as we had been playing a week ago, we have gone backwards, and it's alarming to see."

Garden City scored the first two points of the opening set on Barton errors. But the cougars responded with three straight points. Moments later, (Rayanne) de Oliveria's kill put Barton up 8-6.

"The frustrating part was the elementary mistakes that we made tonight," Hiltz explained.

Even with some of those mental miscues, Garden City found themselves up 12-9 following Meosha Erving's kill. But as they did earlier in the frame, Barton answered with a 7-2 run that put the visitors up 16-14. The Cougars pushed that lead to five following a Garden City error. After the home squad trimmed the deficit to two, Barton took advantage of a couple more Broncbuster mistakes to take the set.

"Not knowing who was supposed to be serving is unacceptable at this level and at this point in the season," Hiltz said. "And for the error to come from both of our captains just shows where we were as a team tonight."

The second set was more of a runaway. Barton jumped out to a 12-4 lead following Agnieska Paskevic's kill. They extended that to double digits a few minutes later. (Rayanne) de Oliveria added a crosscourt klll, the Broncbusters committed back-to-back hitting errors, and Barton was up two sets to none.

"As a coach, it's now back on me to ensure my team is ready to play," Hiltz said. "I thought we had crossed a bridge with our energy and focus levels. But clearly, we have not, and we need to go back to doing things in a less fun, more business type way."

The third set was almost a carbon copy of the second. Right out of the gates, Garden City committed two unforced errors fueling an early Barton run. The Cougars scored 10 of the first 11 points of the set to build a nine-point cushion. Later in the frame, Angel Sherman's attack sailed out of bounds, putting the Cougars up by 10. A couple of rallies later, Barton was up 12. That was the beginning of the end as a hitting error followed by a service miscue gave the Cougars a three-set victory.

The Broncbusters have Thursday off before hitting the road for Clarendon on Friday. Match time is set for 6 p.m.