Caleb Gottry attends Chandler Preparatory Academy and is a member of the AIA’s Student SID program.

The Chandler Prep Titans hosted the Gilbert Classical Spartans on Thursday, October 3. Coming in undefeated in region play against the Spartans having gone 1-2 in the region, the Titans shut down the Spartans in four close scoring sets for a 3-1 victory. Head Coach Jones said this about his team.

“They did well for a bunch of mistakes. They recovered really well. I thought that they battled hard even in the set that they were just tanking. So overall, I thought they showed a lot of maturity today.”

Senior outside hitter, Marin Scoggin started the Titans out strong in the first set with a seven-point run including two aces and aided by Sophomore Mia Evers with four kills and Evi Yates with one kill. Senior setter Sydney Thacker dished out five assists of her eight for the set along with one kill. After two four-point runs by the Spartans, Scoggin won the set 25-17 with a four-point service run including two aces. The Spartans responded early in the second set serving for six straight points including four of the eight aces that GCA collected in the second set. The Titans never regained the lead, and had trouble responding defensively to the strong Spartan offense. The Titans made it close but fell just short for a final score of 22-25. Yates said this:

“We had some rough spots in defense, but overall our offense was good. We really wanted to focus on our passing and really just holding for a three count and making sure we got a good pass to the setter.”

Chandler Prep bounced back in the third set and Yates grabbed an early lead serving with a seven-point run. They never gave up the lead and junior, Olivia Cadien paced the Titans with six kills. Junior libero, Cassi Bronson got several good digs and the Titans serve receive was strong, holding GCA to only one ace in the third set. The Titans won the set 25-18. Both teams kept it close in the fourth set with long rallies and short scoring runs. The Titans were strong at the net led by Cadien with five kills and Yates with four, and the Titans clinched the victory in the fourth set 25-17. Jones sees room for improvement after Thursday’s game:

“We need to pass better. In that second set, we didn’t do a very good job passing. They aced us a lot, so we’ll focus a lot on serve receive this week. We also didn’t serve well in that last set. We missed seven serves. We’ll work out some serve and serve receive. We have a tournament this weekend, so we’ll see if we can’t do better this weekend in those areas. It’s a good time to go to tournament and try to improve, so we’ll see what we can do.”

The Titans host the Chandler Prep Volleyball Invite, October 4-5 and then take on the Valley Lutheran Flames on Tuesday, October 8. Titan Up.