Oakville Volleyball Defeats Mehlville in Breast Cancer Game

While Thursday's girls volleyball match between Oakville and Mehlville appeared to be another Suburban West Conference showdown between the two district rivals, it actually meant a lot more to the several hundred fans in attendance. The game was designated as a “pink out” night where both teams were raising money for breast cancer awareness.

“We tried to talk about it a lot at school and tried to get the word out that we were going to support breast cancer awareness at our game,” Oakville’s Jennifer Brendel said. “So I think we had a pretty good showing of people.”

Oakville walked away with a commanding 25-12, 25-10 victory at Mehlville as the Tigers (10-3, 4-0 Suburban West) bounced back from a loss to Kirkwood. Tiger head coach Morgan Lucas was pleased with her team’s play as well as Oakville’s ability to mix up their offensive scheme in the second match.

“I was happy with our serve receive tonight because we stayed within our system and we were able to run our middles, especially in the second game,” Lucas said. “We talked a little bit after the first game and in the second game we ran some quicker things and we began mixing it up in the second with our hitters, so I was really happy with that too.”

Brendel had a solid evening for the Tigers as she recorded five kills, two assisted blocks and three aces in the win over Mehlville.

“When Oakville can pass well and can get the ball to the middle and get kills, we can compete with just about anybody,” Lucas said. “When we can feed the middle, it opens everything else back up. When she gets the ball, we win games.” 

Brendel thought that the Tigers played a solid game, but there’s still a lot of room left for improvement if Oakville has any desire to win a conference championship this season.

“I think we played pretty well, but I don’t think we were playing up to our intensity that we usually play at,” Brendel said. “So in order to win tomorrow (Friday) night’s game against Lafayette, we’re going to have to really pick it up.”

The loss for Mehlville (4-10, 0-3 Suburban West) marked the Panthers seventh loss in the past eight games.

“Compared to how we’ve played in the last couple of games, we were off,” Mehlville head coach Susan Hurt said. “Morgan (Lucas) has always got good teams, so they’re solid defensively and offensively. We were just not in sync tonight at all. We’ve played Tuesday, Wednesday and now Thursday this week with no practice in between and we did that last week too. So it’s tough to get in practices when you’re doing that.”

Mehlville hits the hardwood this Tuesday evening as the Panthers host Lafayette at 5:15 p.m. Oakville returns to action Friday evening as the Tigers host Lafayette at 5:15 p.m.