DUKE CENTER — With the North Tier League title already in hand, you could be forgiven for thinking that Port Allegany was simply playing out the stretch until the volleyball district playoffs begin next week.

But the Lady Gators were all business on Wednesday night, sweeping Otto-Eldred for the second time this season en route to a convincing 25-16, 25-15, 25-18 victory.

Port Allegany (16-4 overall, 15-1 NTL) has now won seven of its past eight matches and very much looks like the team to beat in District 9 Class A.

“We played well tonight,” Port A coach Pam Terrette said. “The chemistry on the floor seems to be coming back together.”

Despite winning in straight sets, the Gators got all they could handle from Otto in each set.
The back-and-forth play began from the get go. With both teams swapping games to start the match the score stood at 4-4 when Port Allegany used some excellent serving to jump out to a 10-4 advantage.

Port A would keep O-E at bay for most of the set, with the lead swelling to 18-11 at one point. The Terrors didn’t go down easy, earning several hard-earned points. But the Gators eventually took the set without too much trouble 25-16.

Port Allegany got off to a solid start in the second set, winning 10 of the first 15 points. The play was once again fairly close, but the Gators were playing just a little bit better.

Otto’s main issue was its inability to string points together. The Terrors would win back a point but would rarely hold serve for more than a point or two.

O-E would cut the Gators’ lead to 15-14 at one point, but unfortunately that’s as close as things would get in the set. Port A used its power and sound positioning to overwhelm O-E to end the set.

The key for Terrette and company on Wednesday, as it’s been all season, was the chemistry between her players.

“I sound like a broken record but we have been concentrating on teamwork,” she said. “Spreading the ball around evenly to all our hitters. We don’t want (the) defense to know if we’re going middle or outside. We want to spread it around evenly. We have a solid team and I want to spread the ball to all of them.”

Otto-Eldred was able to jump out to a marginal lead to begin the third set, and it could have been larger if not for some miscommunication issues that saw the ball drop between Terror players more than once.

As was the case over the course of the entire match, the Gators were simply making fewer mistakes. Otto fought until the bitter end, but unfortunately for the Terrors, the end result was never in much doubt.

Jenna Sprankle paced Port Allegany with 20 assists, 11 digs, and eight aces, while Kierra Keck notched five kills, two blocks, and seven digs, and Erin Stauffer added five kills and six digs.

While Terrette was happy overall with how her team played, she noted that there is still very much room for improvement.

“We served well tonight,” she said. “We mixed the ball up well tonight. But we need to improve on our serve-receive and passing. In our first game only 25 percent of our serves went to target. The second game was 50 percent to target. We’ve gotta do better than that. We can’t put the ball away if we can’t get the ball in our setters’ hands.”

Otto-Eldred (12-7 overall, 10-5 NTL), meanwhile, has now lost four of its last six matches.

“Our team isn’t playing as a team,” Otto coach Jame Thomas said. “We’ve got to jump back and regroup and do some small things well and inch back into getting a spark. Not a whole lot of momentum going our way. It’s just frustrating.”

Leading O-E were Jade Spinney (12 digs), Veronica Benini (10 kills, 14 digs), and Emmalee Sheeler (13 assists).

Port Allegany will host Smethport tonight for its Senior Night

As the Lady Gators prepare to wrap up their regular season and look towards the playoffs, Terrette wants the players to keep an aggressive mindset, even when things aren’t going as well as they were last night.

“We have to swing and put the ball away,” Terrette said. “Our strength this year is our hitters and we have to swing. We cannot be lobbing, pushing, tipping.

“I tell them all the time, ‘If we go down, we’re going to go down swinging.’ But then we go out against Galeton and two matches in a row we tipped the ball and didn’t put it away. So even when we have big blockers in front of us, we’re swinging.”