Royals fend off Golden Knights at the purple castle in volleyball
Battling the first of two mid-Sussex neighborly opponents, Delmarva Christian staked its claim as the top team in the neighborhood with a 3-0 win over Sussex Central Oct. 4.
“It was really fun! I love hometown games,” said senior Layni Dukes. “I know a lot of girls on that team, so it was really fun to play against them.”
The Royals jumped out to an early 9-4 lead to force a Sussex Central timeout. A big serving run from sophomore Katie Jones put the Royals within striking distance of the first game-winning point. As Dukes was serving, senior Taylor Lowe registered the 24th point while classmate Elaina Millaway knocked over the set point to win 25-10.
“Our girls were a lot more confident going into this game,” Royals coach John Luong said. “We have a couple more tough games ahead of us, and as long as we're confident we can keep up with a lot of the opportunities.”
Delmarva Christian forced another Knights’ timeout in the second set when it took a 14-9 lead prior to Millaway serving up a string of points to make it 20-13. The visitors tightened things up a bit, but were undone on a Dukes serve to seal the set 25-19.
“There's a lot of healthy competition and bickering back and forth,” Dukes said. “I remember when one of my friends was serving, she was in the front row, she would always try to block the server for me so I couldn't see,” Dukes said. “We just laughed; it was fun and very healthy competition, which was good.”
Despite being down 2-0, Sussex Central remained optimistic and tried to take what positives it could during the third and final set. Millaway made sure the victories remained moral as she collected a few more kills to add to her total and ended the game 25-15 during one of her serves.
“My girls played well; they're all playing on the same page, they're trusting each other more, and we're just trying to balance out our win-loss record now,” Luong said.
Making it two home shutouts in a row, the 5-5 Royals hope to bring their streak to three when they welcome Sussex Academy Monday, Oct. 7, after the Cape Gazette’s final deadline.
