Nitros fold Muir under aces
SOUTHEAST GLENDALE — There wasn’t much back and forth when Glendale High hosted Muir in a Pacific League match Tuesday. Most of the points came off serves.
The Nitros piled on 27 aces in the match, as they easily defeated the Mustangs, 25-4, 25-6, 25-2.
First-year Muir Coach Sherry Johnson said she was shocked by her team’s start to the season, as their record fell to 06, 0-2 in league.
“All these girls have potential, we are just struggling to find a combination that works”, said Johnson, whose team was three players down Tuesday. “We have a problem with not getting everyone to the games or practices. We struggled today to fill our positions.”
Muir also struggled to find scoring, as seven of its 12 match points came off Glendale service errors. The Mustangs’ Jessica McClain did finish the game with two digs and a kill.
“We shouldn’t have missed as many serves as we did,” Glendale (4-2, 1-1 in league) Coach Jennifer Vo said. “We have been struggling on our serving the last few games. They were able to still serve tough today.”
Glendale took control of the match from the very beginning, jumping out to an 8-0 lead in the first game behind six straight aces from Gabrielle Magpantay, who finished with eight. The Nitros went on to win the first game, 25-4, behind 13 aces.
Muir kept the second game close in the beginning, with the score tied 3-3, before Glendale went on a 22-3 run for a 25-6 win. Ninette Mirzakhanian had five kills in the second game and a team-high nine in the match.
“I tried to mix it up so they didn’t know what to expect — put it different places, use a hard serve, float serve, whatever I could to keep them off-balance,” Mirzakhanian said. “This was good practice because we have really been struggling on our serves lately.”
The Nitros didn’t let up in the third game, keeping most of their starters in and putting up their most dominant performance of the match, defeating the Mustangs, 25-2.
“That’s probably our biggest problem,” Vo said. “We tend to play down after winning the first or second game, so it was really nice to see them play stronger in the third game.”