Warriors beat Tri-City in season opener

Fallbrook High School's girls' volleyball team began the 2018 season with a four-game win Aug. 21 at home against Tri-City Christian.

"It was pretty good to get that first victory," said Fallbrook coach Chip Patterson. "It showed that we had the potential."

Fallbrook's 2018 varsity roster consists of seven returning varsity players, including five who received all-league honors from the Valley League coaches last year, and six players new to the varsity. The program also includes 14 girls on the junior varsity squad and 14 girls on the novice team.

The final score of the first game of the Aug. 21 match was 25-18 in Fallbrook's favor.

"The whole time we were playing from behind," said Patterson. "They shut down our middles. They kept our middles from establishing themselves. They had great timing on the blocks."

Four consecutive Fallbrook points gave the Warriors the lead.

"From that point on we kind of dominated them," said Patterson. "We pulled away."

This year Fallbrook's starting middle blockers are 6'0" junior Sonsi Jarvis and 5'11" senior Skyler Traut. The Warriors' starting outside hitters are 6'0" senior Maddie Nachsteim and 5'8" senior Madison McCarty. The setter is 5'6" senior Vanessa Dalton. Those five were given all-league honors last year; Traut along with 2017 senior Emma Christopherson were named to the Valley League first team. McCarty is Fallbrook's only fourth-year varsity player, although she was primarily a libero from 2015 to 2017.

Keely Powell, a 5'6" junior, is this year's primary libero. The right side hitter role will be filled by both 5'8" junior Olivia Christopherson and 5'7" freshman Sophia Badillo.

"We are a smaller team this year," said Patterson.

Although Tri-City was able to limit the effectiveness of Jarvis and Traut in the first game, Nachsteim and McCarty had better success.

"They pretty much dominated from the outside," said Patterson.

The serves of McCarty and Powell were also effective against the Eagles' defense.

"They served a tremendous amount of aces to get us back into the game," said Patterson.

Tri-City came from behind to win the second game by a 25-22 margin.

"We were up ahead and we could have closed it out," said Patterson.

Patterson opted to experiment with a different lineup to determine the results, which did not work in Fallbrook's favor.

"It kind of made the game slower," said Patterson. "We couldn't get rhythm."

The third game was a 25-14 Fallbrook victory.

"I don't think they were ever close to beating us in the third set," said Patterson. "We kind of got it more together. We started blocking more, we dug a lot more balls, and we made less service mistakes."

The 25-19 Fallbrook triumph in game four included a 21-10 Warriors lead which allowed Patterson to give game experience to his bench players.

"The bench players were able to hold them off," said Patterson.

Fallbrook's first road contest of 2018 was a 25-20, 26-28, 25-15, 25-22 San Marcos win on the Knights' court Aug. 23. San Marcos middle blocker Ellie Alden had 22 kills in 26 swings with only one hitting error.

"We didn't do well against their big middle," said Patterson. "They bonded as a team, but they couldn't stop the middle."