Volleyball Preview: Grand Valley Mustangs vs. Bloomfield Cardinals
Grand Valley has been on the road for two straight, but on Tuesday they'll finally head home. They will host the Bloomfield Cardinals at 7:00 p.m.
Grand Valley is probably headed into the matchup with a chip on their shoulder considering Chalker just ended the team's three-game winning streak on Thursday. They took a 3-1 hit to the loss column at the hands of the Wildcats.
The final score came out to 25-23, 22-25, 25-21, 25-11.
Meanwhile, Bloomfield can finally bid farewell to their five-game losing streak thanks to their game on Tuesday. They walked away with a 3-1 win over Mathews.
After all that action, the final score was 29-27, 9-25, 25-13, 25-15.
Bloomfield's success was the result of a balanced attack that saw several players step up, but Sophia Shaffer led the charge by getting 38 digs, seven kills, and two aces. The dominant performance gave Shaffer a new career-high in blocks. The team also got some help courtesy of Nevaeh Doll, who had 32 digs and five aces.
She wasn't the only good server: Bloomfield was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 12 aces. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now served at least five aces in five consecutive contests.
Grand Valley's loss dropped their record down to 6-6. As for Bloomfield, their victory bumped their record up to 3-6.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Tuesday's match: Grand Valley has serving mastered this season, having averaged 11.3 aces per game. However, it's not like Bloomfield struggles in that department as they've been averaging 9.1. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Everything went Grand Valley's way against Bloomfield in their previous meeting back in September of 2018 as Grand Valley made off with a 3-0 win. Will Grand Valley repeat their success, or does Bloomfield have a new game plan this time around? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
