Jordyn Drayton (10) of the Labette Cardinals rises up for a block during a home loss to NEO A&M on Monday night at Labette Community College.
Eating back-to-back losses for just the second time this year, the upstart Labette Cardinals fell at home to NEO A&M, 3-1, on Monday before dropping a road KJCCC tilt to Highland, 3-0, on Wednesday.
In Monday’s match, NEO A&M took down the Cardinals in four sets, 3-1 (25-22, 25-18, 20-25, 25-19).
Allie Rushing led Labette in kills with 15 while Jordyn Drayton added a dozen.
Amelia Oliver had 20 assists while Evyn Morrow had 24 digs.
Labette struggled with its serve-receive, committing seven errors.
“We were terrible with our serve-receive,” Kelley said. “We struggled to get the ball going. If our serve-receive number matched our defensive effort, we would’ve done some really good things.”
The Cardinals’ offense mustered a .156 kill percentage.
“Our first touch was really sloppy,” Kelley said. “When kids go to just get the ball up, things don’t go well. We have to actually go and make a good pass to get into system.” After winning a pair of matches over the weekend, the energy from Labette’s bench seemed uncharacteristically deflated for a squad in the midst of the best year in school history.
“It was low vibes and low energy, and I’m not sure why,” Kelley said. “I’m not sure where the disconnect is. We wait for something to happen to be explosive instead of starting off that way. We wait to get fired up. Sometimes that play doesn’t come for 10, 12 points. Then we kick our ass into gear. We can’t do that.”
Up next
Labette heads to Kansas City, Kansas for a tournament at KCK on Friday and Saturday. The Cardinals will face Southwestern, Iowa Central and Morton.
“Our kids know what they’re capable of, so when things don’t do their way, they’re being really hard on themselves,” Kelley said. “I don’t need to be hard on them. I’m not satisfied with the loss, but I’m proud of the things I saw. I thought we played better against NEO A&M than we did over the weekend, and we won twice. It was just against lower level competition.”
Sean Frye/Sun photo
