MOUNT VERNON — The Mount Vernon High School boys volleybal team rolled in its first Ohio Capital Conference home game this season, dismantling the Delaware Pacers, 25-11, 25-10, 25-11, on Thursday night.
“It was real nice to get a win,” said Mount Vernon coach Alan Cassell. “I thought we played pretty well today. I got to put a lot of kids in. I got to play some youmger ones.”
The Pacers, who came in to the contest with a 4-1 record, could put nothing together all evening against the Yellow Jackets (4-1).
“It’s not the toughest one we played, but getting the first (home OCC) win is always a relief,” said Mount Vernon senior Roger Melick. ”It gets it off your back, so you can get rolling into the regular season. We’re just happy to be out here, happy to be playing.”
“It was good to get the first one out of the way.” said Jacket freshman Arron Nixon, who was playing in his very first varsity game.
In the first game of the match, the Jackets surged ahead, 14-8, thanks to a nice pair of digs by Ben Bennett and a couple of Chris Omahan kills. It was the Jackets’ overall ball handling that was so impressive.
“We’ve been working on ball control a little bit in practice,” said Melick. “One of the characteristics we like about our team the most is that we have really dynamic ball control. We have a lot of people who can do a lot of different things, and that’s something we like to use to our advantage.”
“We’ve spent some time practicing that,” said Nixon, who is also the younger brother of teammate Andre Nixon.
Once again, Mount Vernon got out in Game 2, 15-6, getting some key kills from Ben Miglin.
More of the same in Game 3 as the Jackets took advantage of some unforced errors by the Pacers, three more Bennett kills and some great teamwork from Carter Cassell to jump out 17-7. Chris Ingersol added three aces to make it 21-7.
“We spent a lot of time in practice working on our passing,” said coach Cassell. “I think, on the opening weekend, we were a litle shaky at that, so we spent a lot of time working on it. If we can pass it okay, we’ve got a lot of weapons and we’ll put the ball down on the floor. Our back row players are pretty good about getting their positions. If our front row blockers can get a touch on the ball, our back row players can usually pick it up.”
The Jackets are back in action on Tuesday, traveling to Pickerington Central for a 5:30 p.m. match.
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