Unsatisfied 'Stangs sweep Buffs
Mullen snaps a 4-match skid with 3-0 road victory at Smoky Hill, but is left wanting more -- another step in the process of growing for a younger inexperienced team.
AURORA – Chalk it up to the steps toward improvement.
Mullen’s sweep of host Smoky Hill on Wednesday left some of the Mustangs wanting more. Their 25-18, 25-21, 25-18 victory over the winless Buffaloes in the Centennial League could have been better and more dominant.
And it’s a good attitude to have.
“It’s awesome to get the win,” head coach Jeff Oliver said after his team evened its record at 4-4. “We’re just trying to get them to play better.”
Smoky Hill, with a roster that’s about as inexperienced as Mullen’s, dipped to 0-7 in the new Season C and has been swept in every match as the second go-round of the league is under way. After the Mustangs ran into the higher end of the loop recently, they were looking for more against the Buffs.
“There wasn’t a lot of energy, celebration and intensity,” Oliver said, “and we kind of missed that a bit. Obviously, we needed to get the win. We just need to keep building to play at the level we want.”
Caroline Harmon concurred. The senior outside and right-side hitter said she didn’t necessarily feel “like we won. We should have been able to do better, we should have dominated. But it’s just down to the simple mistakes that we need to fix.”
Mullen had Smoky Hill grab the lead down the stretch in two of the three games before pulling away late, the exception being the third game. The Mustangs had a few errors, mentally and physically, to help the Buffs along and give them life before regrouping.
Hoping the first go-round gives them an edge the rest of the regular season, Harmon said “we know how everyone plays, so now we know to make adjustments and the coach can walk us through how to make other adjustments that maybe we haven’t seen yet.”
Of course, Mullen was missing a couple of players – again – through coronavirus (COVID-19) and the latest quirk in this shortened season involves no match for six days. The Mustangs won’t be in action until Tuesday, April 6, when they will host Arapahoe at Hutchison Fieldhouse, 6:30 p.m.
“We haven’t had a lot of practices, but we’ll be getting some and that’s great,” Oliver said. “It will be good to get back to that.”
He’s also pleased that his younger, inexperienced team has gotten to the point that it can be this picky about how it plays. It’s another step taken.
But a victory is always a victory, freshman Devon Moore knows, and she’s glad her team grabbed one after dropping four consecutive matches.
“I think it’s good,” the outside hitter said. “We had tough competition the last week. And this was good practice for us, a lot of stuff we need to work on as a team. We’re getting stronger as a team.”
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