STORY BY MATT SIMON
Heading into the opening round of the CIF Division 4 playoffs, the St. Anthony girls volleyball team had some jitters on Thursday night at Jack Errion Memorial Gymnasium.
Although there were playoff nerves, the Saints were the better team on the court as they swept Sunny Hills 25-10, 25-22, 25-19.
LMU bound senior setter Isabella Bareford and junior middle blocker Sam Ashworth were in sync for the entire match as Ashworth finished the match high 15 kills.
“Isabella and I have been playing together for awhile so we are able to sync really well,” Ashworth said.
Although the Saints won the match, there was some issues throughout the match that St. Anthony will need to shore up before Saturday’s match against Buena.
“I think we have some things we need to tighten up,” Bareford said. “We had some serve-service issues that we can work on before Saturday.”
Bareford finished with 30 assists while McPherson had six kills and Tiare Jennings had five kills.
St. Anthony coach Alicia Lemau’u was glad the team took the opening round victory, but said the team has things to work on.
“We played a lot of matches this season and had some injuries,” Lemau’u said. “So, we played our actual lineup for the first time last week against La Salle. Tiare was playing front row again for the first time in 40 days. So, now it’s all about finding the lineup again and getting back in the groove.”
