Hornets off to great start despite loss to Helena
The Chelsea High School volleyball team is off to a tremendous start in the season’s first month of play, but the Hornets have already met their kryptonite: Helena.
Helena knocked off Chelsea for the third time this season on Tuesday night, downing the Hornets 3-0 (25-20, 25-8, 25-15) in a Class 6A, Area 8 match.
“We got down on ourselves, we missed five serves in that first set, and that was literally the difference in the game,” said Chelsea coach Jessica Pickett. “We couldn’t get the third ball in. They just put the ball in the court and let us make mistakes.”
The first set was tight for the majority, until an 8-3 Helena run opened the gap and allowed the Huskies to win 25-20.
Helena then used a 9-1 run midway through the second set to pull away and cruise to the 25-8 result. The third set was much of the same. Chelsea battled back in the latter stages, but still fell, 25-15.
Chelsea is now 20-4 on the season, fresh off a win at the Hewitt-Trussville Husky Challenge, but three of those losses have come to Helena (two in area play, one in a tournament).
Pickett credited Helena’s experience as one of the differences in the match, and Chelsea’s hot start to the season has been to the surprise of many. The Hornets graduated six seniors from last year’s team and are breaking in many new pieces this fall.
Even though the two area losses have hurt Chelsea (the Hornets have a pair of area matches remaining against Pelham) and greatly diminished its chances to host the area tournament, Pickett believes her team is still ascending.
“There’s a lot of volleyball left to play,” she said. “We’re going to peak at the right time. We’re young. We’re going to start connecting. We just got to keep working at it, keep chipping away.”
Energy and confidence are two keys to Chelsea’s success the rest of the way, and both were in abundance last weekend, as the Hornets won six matches in Trussville. They beat Hewitt-Trussville, Mortimer Jordan and Indian Springs in pool play. In gold bracket play, they knocked off Oxford and Pleasant Valley before taking down Clay-Chalkville in the finals.
“We moved on from mistakes better, and that was something that we hounded on this weekend. We just didn’t do that well today,” Pickett said.
Chelsea now looks ahead to another area match on Thursday, as it hosts Pelham at 6 p.m.