Young Lady Broncos get second win
Kenny Chisam has spent the early part of the season preaching about short-term memory to his Boyd Middle School volleyball team.
Monday night, the Lady Broncos showed they were listening.
Boyd erased a six-point deficit behind a remarkable serving run from Hope Allen in the first set, then finished off a sweep of 931 Academy at J.K. Stanley Gymnasium to pick up its second victory of the season.
"Tonight was a great win for our Lady Broncos," said Chisam after the match. "We were down by six points, with the score sitting at 15-21, and things were looking tough. But we got the ball back, and Hope Allen stepped up to serve."
Allen didn't give it back.
With Boyd staring at a 21-15 deficit, Allen served the final 10 points of the opening set as the Lady Broncos stormed back to win 25-21. What had been shaping up to be a frustrating opening-set loss suddenly became one of Boyd's biggest highlights of the season.
"Hope went on an incredible serving run - it was an amazing comeback," said Chisam.
The Lady Broncos carried the momentum into the second set, though 931 Academy didn't go away quietly. Both teams battled throughout the set, but this time Boyd was able to make enough plays down the stretch to finish the sweep.
It was an important step for a Lady Bronco squad that has experienced its share of growing pains.
Boyd started the season with three straight losses before breaking through with its first victory at Franklin Classical. The Lady Broncos won that match 25-11, 18-25 and 15-10, with Anna Long delivering the match-winning ace.
Since then, Chisam has continued stressing many of the same things: communication, consistency and learning how to respond when things start going wrong.
Most of all, he has wanted his players to stop allowing one mistake to become several.
"Like I told the girls, you have to forget the mistakes you make and move on to the next play," said Chisam. "As I've said before, volleyball requires a short-term memory. You can't allow one mistake to affect the next point."
Monday's comeback may have been the best evidence yet that the message is sinking in.
Down six late in the opening set, Boyd could have allowed the deficit to get into its head. Instead, the Lady Broncos got the serve back, Allen caught fire and the entire team kept battling until the scoreboard had completely flipped.
The victory moves Boyd to 2-5 this season and gives Chisam another sign his young team is starting to put the pieces together.
"We are going to celebrate tonight, but tomorrow it's back to work," said Chisam. "We will evaluate what we did well and work on correcting the things we still need to improve.
"I truly feel like we are moving in the right direction. We still have work to do, but we will take it one game at a time, one point at a time, and continue getting better.
"I’m proud of these girls and the fight they showed tonight."
