HEALDSBURG — It was hot outside the Healdsburg gym, hot inside the Healdsburg gym and hot all the way to this Sonoma County town for the Middletown High School volleyball teams on Tuesday as they hit the road to play the Greyhounds in non-league action.
Worse yet, the vans Middletown’s players rode in had no air conditioning, making it a pretty miserable experience for all involved.
“I felt like my team was in a sauna for about an hour and a half,” Middletown head coach Vanessa Davis said of the heat wave gripping the North Coast right now, with temperatures sailing well into the triple digits and expected to stay there all week and possibly beyond.
“It was about 95 degrees in the gym,” Davis said as the Mustangs dropped a 25-18, 17-25, 25-21, 25-16 decision.
“We still gave them a battle,” Davis said. “They were pretty darn good. They had a couple of outside hitters who hit pretty darn hard.”
Senior Skylar Williams led Middletown with 10 service points, reeling off five in a row in the second set, which the Mustangs won to even the match at a set apiece. Williams also ended up with four aces and four kills.
Other Middletown leaders were Ella Sust with five kills, six assists, one ace and one block, and Cora Holley, who had a nice run from the service line in the fourth and final set in an attempt to rally the Mustangs. She ended up with five points, one of them an ace, and four kills.
Middletown’s JVs shook off a first-set loss to Healdsburg to win 22-25, 25-20, 16-14.
“We definitely showed up,” Middletown coach Erika Galvan said. “We got off to a bit of a slow start in the first set, we were kind of overheated.”
Harley Holley’s serving carried the Mustangs as she recorded 20 points from the line on the night, eight of them aces. She scored 12 straight points in the second set to help turn momentum in the Mustangs’ favor once and for all.
“Great serving,” Galvan said of Holley, a middle hitter who also had two kills.
Middletown’s other middle hitter, Taylor Thompson, also played well in the three-set victory.
“Those two really solidified us,” Galvan said.
Both Middletown teams return to action this weekend in the Cougar Invitational at the Upper Lake High School gym, which does have air conditioning. The varsity sqUAD plays four straight matches Friday beginning with a noon battle against Clear Lake. Matches against Mendocino (1:10 p.m.), Upper Lake (2:20 p.m.) and Kelseyville (3:30 p.m.) follow. Middletown’s JVs play in the tournament’s JV bracket Saturday.
