Calvin Adkins
Sports Editor
PINETOPS —
The Tarboro Vikings defeated the SouthWest Edgecombe Cougars 25-18, 25-19, 26-24, Tuesday during both teams’ first Eastern Plain Conference game of the season.
The Vikings’ victory was the second over a county rival in two days. On Monday, Tarboro defeated North Edgecombe in four sets. Vikings Coach Jamie Willoughby was not as concerned about the rivalry match up with the Cougars when compared to just winning the game.
“I know a lot of people looked at it as Tarboro vs. SouthWest – the big rivalry,” said Vikings coach Jamie Willoughby. “I looked at it as the first conference game of the season. We would rather start the conference 1-0 instead of 0-1. If you start off 0-1 it seems like you are playing catchup the rest of the year.”
Playing catchup is what the Cougars did the entire match against the Vikings.
In Game 3, the most competitive game of the match, the Vikings led 24-19 and it appeared all but over.
Cougar C. Owens apparently saved her best serving game for last.
Owens and the Cougars became scrappy scoring five consecutive points and tied the game at 24-24.
With the score tied at 24-24 the Vikings returned Owens serve which dropped at the feet of two defenders and Tarboro took a 25-24 lead.
On the Vikings ensuing serve, Kearra Brinson served the game out.
“This wasn’t our best game of the year. We played just good enough to win,” Willoughby said. “We made too many serving errors. We have to improve serving the ball.”
Looking back at the Cougars’ stats Coach Kendra Jones said her team also made too many serving errors.
“Serving really hurt us,” she said. “We usually serve better than that. I don’t know what was wrong with us today. I told them if they had played like the first two games like they did the last one, the outcome of the match could have been different. We’re young and we will get better.”
