“We had a great energy level out there tonight,” said Willis. “Everyone communicates really well and is excited after every play. We are all good friends on and off the court and you can see that in the way we are playing. Everyone on the team is such a great woman of God.”

Head coach Jim Smoot concurs with Willis assessment of the team. “The biggest difference between this year and last year is team cohesion,” said Smoot. “They love being around each other.”

That difference was evident in tonight’s performance. “Everyone I have put in has done a great job,” said Smoot. “I feel comfortable in substituting anyone into the game. She didn’t get to play much tonight, but Madison [Fragoso] went in and did a great job for us like she did this last weekend [at the Concordia Volleyball Festival]. Stephanie [Strasner] and Katheryn [Obermeyer] both were in there serving for Allegra and scored a lot of points for us. The whole back row did a great job passing the ball to our offense.”

“I thought setting Allegra about every ball to start the game, and her hammering them down was encouraging,” said Smoot. Four of the first eight points in game one came by way of Willis kills.

Coach Smoot knows that his team will face a tougher challenge on Saturday night when they host #5 Concordia. “They don’t run a lot of offense compared to what we do. Their outside hitters basically stay outside. But they do a lot of different things with their middle hitters so we are going to have to concentrate on stopping their middle attack.” Saturday night’s game is scheduled to begin at 5:00 p.m.

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