REDLANDS — Unsettled and unsure.
Those were the words Redlands girls volleyball coach Corinne Flowers used to describe her team’s performance in a September 17 loss at Citrus Valley. The Terriers had one day to prepare after having a week off due to the Line fire.
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Nine days later, with undefeated Beaumont in town, Redlands was a completely different team in a 25-14, 25-20, 25-13 sweep of the Cougars which created a tie atop the Citrus Belt League standings with one round of play complete.
“Give credit where credit is due to Citrus Valley because they had to deal with the same situation we did in terms of prep time and found a way to get the job done,” Flowers said. “But right now I feel like we’re playing some good volleyball and doing so while playing with lineups now that we have our full roster available to us.”
In the opening set, a pair of aces from Natalia Caravia plus a combination block by Raegan Lawson and Kameryn Carpenter pushed Redlands to a 10-5 lead after the teams traded ties and leads for eight straight points to start the match. Saniyah Sobers had two kills, one of which ended a long rally, and Lauren Reiter had her first of five aces to extended the lead 14-7 lead en route to an opening set win for the Terriers (14-8 overall, 4-1 in league) .
Ally Chase and Morgan Kinser served a pair of early aces for Beaumont (13-9, 4-1) in the second set, as the Cougars jumped out to an early lead. Trailing 13-11, Beaumont’s block tied the set as Dalani Hernandez and Allegra Copeland along with Crystal Adams and Hernandez recorded consecutive combination blocks at the midway point.
A kill by Devi’arre Lucas’ plus a pair of Beaumont violations (reaching over and an attack error) pushed Redlands to a 16-13 lead, and that was as close as Beaumont got down the stretch.
The third set was all Redlands, as the Terriers jumped out to an 11-0 lead with Reiter recording four aces in that run, Redlands completed the sweep in a little more than an hour.
“I’ve had some runs like that previously but to do that in a high stakes match like this is such a good feeling,” Reiter said. “I try to make sure my serve is reliable when it’s my turn behind the line and just be as tough as I can back there for our team. Over the last week or so I’ve really worked with my hitters on our connection because that was something we struggled with going into the Citrus Valley match and in just nine days we’ve made a lot of gains there.”
In addition to Reiter’s five aces, Redlands got 14 kills from Sobers and eight kills from Lucas. Kinser had seven kills with two aces for Beaumont.
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