Garden City loses at Clarendon

By Mike Pilosof

Photo by Adam Shrimplin

Clarendon, TX-There have been plenty of ups and downs during Patrick Hiltz's first season in Garden City. And Friday night was another learning experience.

After suffering through a two-hour delay, the Broncbusters lost in four sets to Clarendon 18-25, 11-25, 25-21 and 18-25.

"I thought we played hard," Hiltz said afterwards. "It was much better than our last two matches. Our defense was very good. We picked up a lot of shots that we haven't been picking up lately."

As they had done in their previous couple of matches, Garden City got off to a strong start. They led 15-13 in the opening set. But the Bulldogs responded with an 11-1 run and never looked back, taking the first two frames from the Broncbusters.

"Unfortunately, we made way too many hitting and service errors," Hiltz said.

Garden City roared back to take the third set; then crawled back from an early deficit in the fourth to tie things up. But Clarendon closed on an 8-3 run to put the match away.

"Our body language was positive for the most part all night long, and that's vital to how we play as well," Hiltz added. Plenty to work on but we got better tonight, and that's the most important thing."

Katarina Vojvodic led the way with 18 kills. Alexandra Jackson had 16 digs.

Next up: Garden City vs. Seward County-Monday, Oct. 7-6:30 p.m.